BONNIE  JEAN. 


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BONNIE  JEAN, 

B    Collection    ot   papers    anO    ipoems    relating    to 
tbe   iraiite   of 

ROBERT  BURNS. 


COMPir-feD   BY 

JOHN  D.  ROSS,  Lly.  D., 

AUTHOR  OF   "SCOTTISH   POETS  IN   AMERICA," 

EDITOR     OF     "highland     MARY,"      "ROUND     BURNS'     GRAVE,' 

"BURNSIANA,"     "BURNS'   CLARINDA,"       ETC. 


with  a  PREFACE  BY 

PETKR    ROSS,    LL.D. 

AUTHOR  OF   "the  SCOT   IN   AMERICA,"      "a  LIFE  OF  SAINT   ANDREW, 
"SCOTLAND   AND  THE  SCOTS,"    ETC. 


"  To  her  memory  peace  ! 
With  thee  she  lieth  in  gray  Dumfries  ;— 
Hers  were  thy  sorrows,  successes,  joys  ; 
She  cuddled  thy  lassies  and  reared,  thy  boys  ; 
She  dropped  o'er  thy  grave  her  quick  hot  tears  ; 
And  gave  to  thy  memory  her  wiaow'd  years. 

REV.    ARTHUR   JOHN    LOCKHART. 


NEW  YORK : 

The  Raeburn  Book   Company, 

1898. 


V 


THIS  voi,uME  IS  re;spectfui,i,y  dedicated 

TO 

WALTER  SCOTT,  JR.,   Esq.,    of  New  York, 

PAST    ROYAL    CHIEF    OF    THE    ORDER    OF    SCOTTISH    CLANS  : 

A    REPRESENTATIVE    SCOTTISH-AMERICAN    GENTLEMAN, 

AN    ENTHUSIASTIC    LOVER    OF    AULD    SCOTIA 

AND    A    WARM    ADMIRER    OF    ROBERT    BURNS    AND    BONNIE    JEAN. 


Mi87283 


PRESS  OF 

WAIyTER  W.   REID, 

NEW  YORK. 


PREFACE. 


I  have  been  requested  to  write  a  preface  to  this 
volume,  this  unique  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the 
wife  of  Robert  Burns,  and  I  comply  with  pleasure. 

So  far  as  I  have  seen  from  the  proof-sheets,  about 
every  event  in  Jean  Armour's  life  has  been  chroni- 
cled, almost  every  phase  of  her  character  has  been 
considered,  by  the  writers  whose  contributions  make 
up  this  interesting  book,  and  so  but  little  remains 
for  me  to  say.  Still  I  cannot  forbear  using  the  op- 
portunity offered  to  me  to  lay  a  stone  or  two  on  the 
cairn  which  the  world  has  raised,  and  is  still,  perhaps 
unconsciously, raising  to  the  memory  of  Jean  Armour. 
She  was  not  a  woman  of  genius,  she  never  burned 
the  midnight  oil  in  search  of  knowledge,  nor  did  she 
ever  wrestle  with  rhyme,  but  no  one  can  have 
studied  the  life  of  her  husband  without  acknowledg- 
ing that  it  was  after  her  influence  over  him  became 
supreme,  after  she  was  publicly  installed  as  his  wife — 
acknowledged  mistress  of  his  heart  and  hand — that 
his  song  attained  its  highest  flights,  its  most  prolific 
abundance. 


viii  PREFACE. 

Early  in  what  is  now  a  study  of  Burns'  life  and 
works  that  has  extended  over  more  years  than  were 
allotted  to  him  who 

— moved  in  manhood  as    n  youth, 

Pride  of  his  fellow  men, 
I  formed  the  idea  that  the  one  woman  who  exerted  a 
real  and  lasting  influence  on  Burns  was  her  whom 
in  return  he  has  immortalized  as  Bonnie  Jean.  All 
that  I  have  since  read  has  tended  to  confirm  that 
idea  and  to  make  it,  to  me  at  least,  pass  from  an  idea 
into  a  theory,  and  from  a  theory  into  a  fact.  I  am 
aware,  of  course,  that  when  people  speak  of  the 
loves  of  Burns  they  think  on  other  women  than  her 
who  became  his  wife.  Some  turn  to  the  hapless 
Clarinda — one  of  the  most  pathetic  figures,  whatever 
way  we  regard  her,  which  the  whole  course  of  Scot- 
tish literature  has  given  to  us ;  but  he  was  under  her 
influence  for  only  a  brief  spell — although  there  is  no 
doubt  that  her  heart  was  his  until  the  end  of  her 
career.  Others,  and  in  fact  the  great  majority, 
turn  their  thoughts  to  the  cherished  figure  of  High- 
land Mary,  surrounded  as  it  is  with  romance,  love, 
pathos  and  mystery.  But  in  spite  of  all  its  poetry, 
its  mystery,  its  depth  of  romance,  and  its  opportun- 
ities for  discussion,  we  turn  from  Highland  Mary  to 
the  real  heroine  of  Burns'  life,  the  heroine   but   for 


PREFACE.  ix 

whom  Highland  Mary  would  have  been  no  more  to 
the  poet  after  the  fit  passed  than  was  ' '  Handsome 
Nell;"  the  heroine  who  so  elevated  and  purified  his 
ideas  of  true  womanhood  as  to  make  him  rise  to  the 
sublimity  of  "To  Mary  in  Heaven;"  the  wife  of  his 
heart,  the  fixed  star  of  his  affections — Jean  Armour. 
Burns  became  acquainted  with  Jean  soon  after  set- 
tling in  Mossgiel,  and  the  acquaintanceship  quickly 
ripened  into  mutual  love.  In  all  the  episodes  of 
Highland  Mary,  Clarinda  and  the  others,  Bums  never 
forgot  Jean.  He  strove  to  forget  her  in  Edinburgh, 
but  could  not  efface  this  woman  from  his  heart. 
Amid  all  the  glitter  of  Auld  Reekie,  in  the  high  tide 
of  his  fame,  Burns  wrote  "I  feel  a  miserable  blank 
in  my  heart  for  the  want  of  her."  When  he  re- 
turned to  Ayrshire  after  the  glory  of  Edinburgh  had 
passed,  he  was  once  more  at  her  side.  His  fame 
had  preceded  him ;  he  was  no  longer  the  ne'er-do- 
well  he  formerly  was  and  old  Armour  looked  on 
Burns  with  different  eyes.  He  was  now  perfectly 
willing  for  the  union  between  the  poet  and  his 
daughter  which  he  had  formerly  so  bitterly  opposed ; 
he  even  urged  it.  Burns  was  so  disgusted  at  the 
servility  shown  in  the  change,  that  he  now  hung 
back.  But  this  did  not  last  long,  and  in  August, 
1788,  Jean  and  Burns  were  married,  and  then  set  out 


X  PREFACE. 

on  the  journey  of  life  together,  in  a  little,  a  very  lit- 
tle, home  at  Mauchline.  Thanks  to  her.  Burns' 
home  life  was  a  happy  one.  We  read  of  no  bicker- 
ings or  npbraidings  between  husband  and  wife — 
none  even  of  those  "tiffs"  which  are  supposed  to  be 
incidental  to  the  marriage  relationship.  To  him  she 
proved  a  real,  loving  help  mate.  She  was  passively 
blind  to  all  his  short-comings.  She  fully  apprecia- 
ted his  genius,  and  understood  his  temperament 
better  than  any  one  else.  She  with  her  evident  tact 
knew  how  to  remove  care  from  his  brow  and  meet 
his  wayward  humors  with  a  pretty  smile  or  a  cheery 
song. 

As  a  life  partner  no  one  was  better  suited  to  get 
along  with  the  whims  and  shortcomings  of  the  poet. 
She  made  for  him  a  happy  home — as  happy  as  she 
could,  and  bore  up  bravely  under  her  sorrows  when 
she  saw  the  crisis  of  her  life  at  hand  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  widowhood  faced  her.  She  was  a  true  wo- 
man, a  good  wife,  an  affectionate  mother,  and  her 
memory  deserves  to  receive  more  of  the  praise  so 
generously  lavished  on  some  of  the  other  loves  of 
the  poet  than  it  has  yet  received. 

He  immortalized  her  in  many  of  his  songs;  he 
wove  a  laurel  wreath  around  her  as  beautiful  and 
endearing,  if  not  as  tragic,   as  that    which    he   wove 


PREFACE.  xi 

around  Highland  Mai*y.  But  there  was  one  differ- 
ence that  speaks  voltinies  for  Jean's  supremacy  in  his 
heart.  While  he  sang  of  her  she  was  before  him 
with  all  the  faults,  frailties  and  shortcomings  of  hu- 
manity, all  the  tedium,  as  it  has  been  called,  of 
ordinary  daily  life;  while  the  other  had  passed 
through  the  veil  and  so  become  idealized  long  before 
the  '*  lingering  star  "  aroused  in  him  such  a  force  of 
agonized  thought,  and  in  time  impelled  the  world,  as 
a  result  of  his  burning  words,  to  elevate  the  High- 
land lass  into  one  of  the  heroines  of  poetry. 

During  her  married  life  with  Burns,  not  a  whisper 
against  Jean's  wifely  character  was  raised,  and  dur- 
ing her  long  widowhood  not  even  the  clatter  of 
Dumfries  could  cast  a  slur  or  suggest  a  hint  to  her 
detriment.  She  survived  her  husband  some  thirty- 
eight  years,  dying  March  26,  1834. 

Left  as  she  was  in  a  most  helpless  condition,  the 
people  of  Scotland  came  to  her  aid,  and  soon  placed 
her  beyond  the  fear  of  all  want,  and  later  made  her, 
from  her  standpoint,  in  easy  circumstances.  She 
seemed  to  consider  from  that  time  that  she  lived  to 
guard  the  fame  of  her  husband.  She  refused  to 
leave  the  little  abode  in  which  he  died.  She  kept  it 
as  a  show  house  to  such  of  his  admirers  as  visited 
Dumfries,  and  devoted  herself,   heart   and    soul,    to 


xii  PREFACE. 

the  training  of  their  children.  How  nobly  she  suc- 
ceeded is  well  known.  Some  were  taken  from  her 
in  early  life  and  laid  to  rest  beside  their  father,  but 
she  was  permitted  to  see. others  make  their  way  to 
honorable  positions  in  the  world,  while  as  the  sunset 
began  to  fall  she  found  herself  the  almost  sainted 
centre  of  her  children's  children. 

She  gave  of  her  means  liberally  in  charity.  The 
attentions  she  received,  from  high  and  low,  never 
affected  her  native  good  sense,  and  her  home  was  a 
picture  of  content.  She  showed  in  the  highest  de- 
gree that  quality  of  common  sense,  blended  with 
kindness,  which  has  done  so  much  to  mould  the 
Scottish  character,  to  shape  the  Scottish  National 
life,  and  if  we  were  to  write  her  epitaph  we  would 
simply  sum  up  her  life  virtues  and  failings  with  the 
words ;  "  A  good  and  true  woman. " 

This  little  volume  will  doubtless  prove  acceptable 
to  the  lovers  of  Scotia's  immortal  bard  everywhere, 
and  be  regarded  as  a  companion  work  to  those  in 
which  the  same  editor  has  with  loving  and  discrim- 
inating care  gathered  together  a  mine  of  informa- 
tion regarding  Highland  Mary  and  Clarinda.  It  is 
from  such  volumes,  dealing  with  special  portions  of 
the  bard's  career,  or  bringing  to  us  a  full  knowledge 
of    those   who    in    one  way   or    other    shaped  that 


PREFACE.  xiii 

career,  that  we  gain  many  valuable  side-lights  on 
his  own  biography,  that  makes  us  understand  all  the 
more  clearly  the  quality  of  the  gift  of  gifts  which 
Scotland  received  when,  in  1859, 

" a  blast  o'  Jan'war'  win' 

Blew  hansel  in  on  Robin." 

It  is  hoped  this  book  will  meet  with  a  vsuccess 
equal  to  that  at  least  bestowed  on  its  companion 
volumes.  I  am  as  ready  as  any  one  to  render 
homage  to  the  memory  of  Clarinda,  I  am  ready  for 
the  sake  of  the  poetry  bearing  her  name  to  rever- 
ence the  heroine  we  know  as  Highland  Mary.  I 
feel  all  the  interest  of  a  Bums  student  in  Allison 
Begbie,  and  love  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  such  good 
and  true  women  as  her  whose  **bonnie  e'en"  still 
sparkle  in  the  poet's  pages,  but  Clarinda,  High- 
land Mary,  and  all  the  rest,  to  an  admirer  of  Burns, 
must  yield  the  foremost  place  to  Bonnie  Jean. 

PETER   ROSS. 
New  York,  October,   1897. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  J.  M.  Murdoch,         .        -        .       .  i 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  James  Gii.i.an,            -       -       -        -  ii 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  Dr.  Robert  Chambers,    -       -       -  13 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  Robert  Burns  Begg,        .       .       .  ig 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  Hunter  MacCui^loch       -       .       .  50 

Bonnie  Jean  in  Edinburgh,  by  Archibai^d  Munro,  51 

"Of  a'  the  Airts,"  by  Rev.  John  Arthur  Lock- 
hart,          -       -  63 

Burns'  Bonnie  Jean,  by  Mrs.  Jameson,      -       .       .  67 

Faithful  Jean,  by  Rev.  Arthur  John  Lockhart,  76 

The  Wife  of  Burns,  by  Ai,an  Scott,          -        -       -  77 

Bonnie  Jean  in  her  Oi.d  Age, 81 

How    Hew    AinsivIE    Kissed    Jean     Armour,     by 

Thomas  C.  Latto, 82 

Mrs.  Burns,  by  Ai.i,an  Cunningham,           -       -       -  84 

The  Wife  of  Burns,  by  John  Gibson  Lockhart,     -  87 

Mrs.    Burns'    Circumstances    After   the   Poet's 

Death, 96 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

Bonnie  Jean,  by  George  Dobie,           .       ...  98 

Death  and  Character  of  Mrs.  Burns,      -        -        -  99 

Brave  Bonnie  Jean,  by  Hon.  Wai^i^ace  Bruce,        -  109 

"Of  a'  the  Airts,"  by  Robert  Ford,         -        -        -  no 

Jean  Armour,  by  Rev.  Wii^i^iam  Lowestofft.  -        -  115 

To  Robert  Burns,  by  Dr.  Benjamin  F.  Leggett,    -  129 

The  Poet  and  his  Wife,    by   Rev.    Arthur  John 

lockhart,        --------    130 

The  Best  Wife  for  Burns,  by  George  Gebbie,  -  153 

BuRNS's  Bonnie  Jean,  by  Angus  Ross,        -       -  -  155 

The  Home  Life  of  Burns  and  Jean  Armour,  -  156 

The  Poet's  Immortai,  Wreath  for  Bonnie  Jean,  -  164 

a   1>(AUCHLINE  IvADY. 

The  Belles  of  Mauchline. 

Oh  !  Were  I  on  Parnassus'  Hill. 

My  Jean. 

Of  a'  the  Airts  the  Wind  can  blaw. 

It  is  na,  Jean,  thy  Bonnie  Face. 

I  ha'e  a  Wife  o'  my  ain. 

The  Winsome  Wee  Thing. 

This  is  no  my  ain  IvASSie. 

Their  Groves  of  Sweet  Myrtle. 

I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  Town. 

By  Way  of  Bpii^ogue,  by  Hon.  Chari^es  H.  Coi^uns,     173 


BONNIE    JEAN. 


By  J.   M.   Murdoch,   Ayr. 


AMONGST  all  the  names  in  Burns'  literature,  no 
one  is  so  dear  to  us  as  "Bonnie  Jean."  As  we 
read  the  varieg-ated  career  of  the  greatest  Scotsman 
ever  born,  we  are  dazzled  by  the  splendour  of  his 
versatility,  as  we  are  well-nigh  moved  to  tears  by 
his  frailties,  we  never  for  a  single  moment  forget  his 
Bonnie  Jean.  Jean  Armour's  fame  can  never  per- 
ish. As  Burns  is  borne  on  the  wave  of  popularity 
his  Jean  will  be  near  him,  and  Scotsmen  all  the  wide 
world  o'er  will  stand  on  the  shore  and  observe  the 
two,  not  with  feelings  of  deep  regret  and  bitter  re- 
morse, but  with  admiration — deep,  fervent,  and 
sincere.  No  lifeboat  will  be  necessary  to  rescue  the 
couple  from  the  grave  of  some  other  singers  and 
heroes;  no  rockets  will  be  fired  to  warm  admirers  of 
impending  doom,  and  no  funeral  service  will  be  held 
to  say  a  few  parting  words  regarding  their  trans- 
formation. The  printing  press  has  not  reached  per- 
fection, nor  has  the  fame  of  Burns  and  Jean  Armour 
reached  its  maximum.  And  so  long  as  the  printing 
press  is  in  existence,  and  Scotsmen  are  what  they 
are,  so  long  will  Burns  and  Bonnie  Jean  survive. 
We  are  sometimes  told  by  those  who,  presumably, 
have  not  studied  human  nature,  that  Burns,  with 
some  cultured,  literary  lady — say  Clarinda — as  help- 
meet, would  have  done  better  work  and  more  of  it  ! 
Oh  the  folly  and  the  indelicacy  of  these  might  have 
beens  !  Burns  had  his  weaknesses,  so  have  all ;  but 
had  we  been  placed  in  his  position  we  should   assur- 


2  BONNIE  JEAN. 

edly  have  walked  in  the  same  plane.  Let  us  not  be 
too  finical  in  our  judgments,  and  thus  emulate  the 
hypocrisy  of  a  Mauchline  preaching. 

We  are  not  amongst  those  who  incessantly  and 
domineeringly  cry  out  that  Burns  and  his  Jean  were 
neglected,  yea  despised,  while  in  the  flesh.  Burns 
was  aware  of  his  marvellous,  preternatural  gifts ;  he 
was,  with  few  exceptions,  received  with  the  respect 
due  to  a  truly  great  man ;  his  poems  created  a  greater 
furore  in  Scotland  than  the  vapid  stuff  of  the 
majority  of  present-day  writers;  and  he  was,  con- 
sidering the  literary  remuneration  of  the  time,  hand- 
somely paid. 

Jean  Armour,  like  many  Scotch  coimtry  lasses, 
was  not  an  adept  in  judging  genius^  and  she  probably 
took  to  Burns,  not  on  account  of  his  literary  gifts, 
but  on  account  of  his  luring,  bewitching,  persuasive 
powers  in  the  art  of  lovemaking.  Isn't  it  curious, 
isn't  it  a  subject  for  our  deepest  meditation,  how  this 
young  girl,  accustomed  to  the  simplicity  of  rustic 
life,  ignorant  of  millinery  paraphernalia  and  the 
rules  of  etiquette — or  tomfoolery — of  the  rich,  and 
unread  in  the  classics,  was,  above  all  others,  the  one 
person  in  the  right  place,  and  who,  after  her  marriage, 
was  alwas  spoken  of  in  terms  of  the  highest  praise  ? 
But  for  her  meeting  with  Burns,  Jean  Armour  would 
likely  have  died  unknown ;  but  as  the  lover,  the  wife 
and  the  widow  of  our  grandest  lyric  poet,  she  cannot 
be  ignored. 

If  Bums  is  to  have  a  corner  in  our  hearts  we  must 
also  provide  a  corner  for  Bonnie  Jean.  We  are  in- 
clined to  say  that  Jean  Armour  did  not  become 
famous  until  after  her  husband's  death,  and  when  we 
say  so  we  know  we  are  upon  treacherous  ground. 
However,  such  is  the  case.  The  genuine  admirers 
of   the  poet,  and  the  prying  slothful  sofa  recliners 


BONNIE  JEAN.  3 

generally  endeavoured  to  see  Jean  as  well  as  Burns, 
but  they  were  so  busy  in  scanning  the  greater  star, 
that  the  lesser  got  scant  justice. 

Since  the  21st  July,  1796,  a  sad,  sad  day  for  Scot- 
land and  the  world,  a  greater  calamity  to  the  world 
than  the  loss  of  a  British  Army  in  Africa,  or  the 
sinking  of  a  score  of  American  ironclads,  Jean  has 
gradually  risen  to  her  true  position  amongst  the 
revered  ones  of  the  earth,  and  in  1895,  we  can  say, 
without  the  fear  of  contradiction,  that  her  life  is  a 
pattern  to  the  mothers  of  the  civilized  globe. 

Some  time  ago,  an  attempt  was  made  to  enhance 
\Sic  /]  the  position  of  Bonnie  Jean,  but  the  assump- 
tions and  the  insinuations  were  too  lifeless  to  evoke 
the  sympathy  of  the  Burns  world.  A  feature  of  the 
present  day  is  controversies  regarding  the  writings 
of  great  minds,  and  whenever  writers  in  the  daily  or 
weekly  press,  or  speakers  on  the  platform  begin  to 
consider  disputed  points,  one  knows  that  the  book,  or 
passage  of  book,  handled  is  or  has  been  read.  This 
remark  is  specially  applicable  to  the  Bible  and  Burns. 
There  are  thousands  of  ambitious  young  men  and 
women  yearning  for  the  day  when  the  offvSpring  of 
their  brains  shall  demand  a  few  letters  to  the  editor, 
and  a  discussion  at  the  literary  society.  But  there 
are  contributions  and  contributions,  and  many  are 
often  times  out  of  place.  The  article  to  which  we 
have  already  referred  was  like  a  dead  dog  on  the 
table  of  a  London  or  New  York  drawing-room — 
nauseous,  vomit-creating,  and  altogether  distasteful. 
A  gentleman,  animated  by  a  desire  for  justice,  asked 
"lovers  of  Burns  to  rescue  noble  Jean  Armour  from 
the  obscurity  into  which  vshe  has  been  relegated  by 
believers  in  an  idealized  Highland  Mary."  It  is  out 
of  the  question  to  make  Jean  Armour  stand  better 
in  our  eyes  by  a  few  daubs,  out  of  the  pot  of  vilifi- 


4  BONNIE  JEAN. 

cation,  on  the  memory  of  Gavin  Hamilton's  maid- 
servant. The  attachment  between  Burns  and  Mary- 
Campbell  was  artistic  in  its  sincerity ;  pathetic  in  its 
shortness;  and  this  is  said  after  allowing  a  table- 
spoonful  of  salt  for  poetic  license.  Mary  Campbell 
is  to  us  what  she  was  to  Burns,  a  true  sample  of 
rustic  virtue  and  simplicity,  and  had  the  fiat  of  Al- 
mighty God  been  sooner  directed  against  Jean 
Armour  than  Mary  Campbell,  the  latter  would  no 
doubt  have  been  as  devoted  as  the  former;  but  to 
say  that  the  poet's  wife  has  suffered  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Mary  Campbell  is  a  pure  surmise,  and  the 
outcome  of  a  quasi- Stevensonian  brain.  The  poet 
was  an  ordinary  mortal,  but  his  characters  are  not  to 
be  found  in  every  man  you  meet  in  Fleet  Street  or 
Broadway;  and  in  purely  love  affairs  he  was  the 
strangest  and  most  wayward  son  of  Adam  that  ever 
trod  the  soil.  Woman  was  to  him  what  the  Yankee 
girl  is  to  Max  O'Rell — a  person  whose  path  should 
be  strewn  with  roses,  and  if  the  poet  in  his  married 
state  often  remembered  his  Highland  Mary,  and 
spoke  with  candour  regarding  her,  what  man  or  wo- 
man would  deny  that  he  was  only  thoroughly  human? 
The  infinite  pathos,  the  extraordinary  superstition, 
the  sublime  faith,  are  all  entwined  around  that  inci- 
dent on  the  banks  of  the  Ayrshire  stream,  and  no  won- 
der that  the  darling  Son  of  Scottish  Poesy  gave  vent 
to  his  feelings  in  such  matchless  verse.  Mary  Camp- 
bell's name  will  ever  be  cherished  with  the  fondest 
affection,  but  never  shall  we  say  that  it  is  to  us  more 
precious  than  that  of  Jean  Armour.  It  is  too  late  in 
the  day  to  blast  the  bright  halo  of  romance  which 
surrounds  the  memory  of  Highland  Mary,  and  to 
impugn  the  poet's  candour  in  connection  with  that 
pathetic  episode  in  his  phenomenally  amorous 
career.     One  who  looks  at  events  with  the  spectacles 


BONNIE  JEAN.  5 

of  a  historian  will  not  be  compelled  to  grope  through 
darkness  to  ascertain  the  unmistakable  reliability  of 
the  poet  concerning  his  passion  for  Mary  Campbell, 
and  his  temporary  anguish  at  the  attitude  of  Jean 
and  her  responsible  guardians. 

Jean  Armour's  first  interview  with  the  poet  was  of 
an  amusing  nature.  She  was  engaged  hanging 
clothes  which  had  been  newly  washed,  and  Burns, 
accompanied  by  his  dog,  chanced  to  pass  the  green. 
The  member  of  the  canine  race  with  a  disregard  of 
the  labours  of  the  girl  ventured  to  walk  on  the  linen, 
with  the  result  that  Jean  shied  a  missle  of  some  kind 
at  the  offending  animal,  and  the  liklihood  is  she 
missed,  the  female  arm  not  being  made  for  such  sport. 
The  dog's  misdemeanour  enabled  the  two  to  engage 
in  conversation,  and  before  they  parted  they  were 
what  we  in  Scotland  term  "speak  acquaint."  This 
incident  is  only  another  illustration  of  what  an  acci- 
dent may  bring  forth.  If  any  dog  justified  its  exist- 
ence that  one  did.  The  whole  incident  is  worthy  the 
brush  of  some  artist,  and  we  are  confident  Burns' 
students  would  be  pleased  to  possess  copies.  The 
subsequent  disregard  of  the  proprieties  and  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  couple  are  saddening  in  the  extreme ; 
but  it  is  sheer  folly  to  be  indignant,  as  urban  Scot- 
land is  to-day  familiar  with  hundreds  of  similiar 
cases.  Burns  was  not  solely  to  blame  for  the  un- 
fortunate position  in  which  Jean  Armour  was  placed. 
The  parents  of  Jean  became  incensed  at  both ;  and 
the  one  lover  dodging  the  representatives  of  the  law 
and  the  other  banished  from  the  parental  roof,  is  a 
picture  which  must  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  man- 
kind— a  picture  dismal  in  its  reality,  and  without  a 
gflimmer  of  sunshine  to  dispel  the  awful  gloom.  But 
the  sun  did  not  always  remain  behind  the  clouds. 
Genius,   or  abilities,   or  graces  of   any  kind,  should 


6  BONNIE  JEAN. 

not  be  taken  into  account  in  deciding  questions  of 
State,  Church,  or  Law,  and  we  fancy  Burns  would 
have  been  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  have 
differed  from  such  a  dictum.  But  there  are  many 
to-day  who  will  say  a  person  of  the  mental  grandeur 
of  Bums  should  have  been  treated  with  more  consid- 
eration. Not  at  all ;  his  faults  were  of  his  own  mak- 
ing, and  the  law  makes  no  distinction  of  persons. 
There  is  this  point  in  Burns'  favour,  that  he  never 
would  have  given  Jean  the  cold  shoulder,  time  alone 
being  all  that  was  necessary  to  put  matters  right. 
Jean's  father  was  not  overstepping  the  bounds  of 
propriety  in  taking  out  a  warrant,  but  we  think  that 
in  a  moment  of  wrath,  and  when  their  pride  felt  the 
sting,  the  parents  treated  Jean  somewhat  harshly. 
The  acclamation  of  a  discerning  public  healed  the 
sore,  although  the  inconsistency  of  Jean's  father  is 
apt  to  make  us  grin.  Even  in  an  estimate  of  Bonnie 
Jean  a  subject  like  the  above  cannot  be  omitted. 
The  vicissitudes  must  have  had  an  effect  upon  the 
after  career  of  Jean.  All  through  these  troubles 
she  bore  up  bravely,  quietly,  and  lovingly.  The 
alliance  was  creditable  to  Burns.  That  it  was  highly 
expedient  cannot  be  doubted.  Morality  has  its  codes, 
and  poor,  unfortunate  Burns  did  not  allow  his  com- 
peers to  cavil  at  his  preaching.  Altogether  the  poet 
is  picturesque  here.  It  is  appropriate  to  introduce 
at  this  stage  one  or  two  of  the  poet's  references  to 
his  wife. 

To  Miss  Peggy  Chalmers  he  wrote : — 
"I  have  married  my  Jean.  I  had  a  long  and 
much-loved  fellow  creature's  happiness  or  misery  in 
my  determination,  and  I  durst  not  trifle  with  so  im- 
portant a  deposit ;  nor  have  I  any  cause  to  repent  it. 
If  I  have  not  got  polite  tittle-tattle,  modish  manners, 
and  fashionable  address,  I  am  not  sickened  and  dis- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  7 

quieted  with  the  multiform  curse  of  boarding-school 
affectation ;  and  I  have  got  the  handsomest  figure, 
the  sweetest  temper,  the  soundest  constitution,  and 
the  kindest  heart  in  the  country." 

To  Mrs.  Dunlop  (his  valued  correspondent),  he 
said  in  a  letter: — "Your  surmise,  madam,  is  just;  I 
am  indeed  a  husband.  The  most  placid  good  nature 
and  sweetness  of  disposition ;  a  warm  heart,  grate- 
fully devoted  with  all  its  powers  to  love  me;  vigor- 
ous health  and  sprightly  cheerfulness,  set  off  to  the 
best  advantage  by  a  more  than  commonly  handsome 
figure ;  these,  I  think,  in  a  woman,  may  make  a  good 
wife,  though  she  should  never  have  read  a  page  but 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  nor 
have  danced  in  a  brighter  assembly  than  a  penny 
pay- wedding. " 

And  of  the  poet  himself  Jean  said,  in  a  conversa- 
tion with  Hew  Ainslie,  "  He  was  never  fractious — 
aye  gude-natured  and  kind  baith  to  the  bairns  and 
to  me. "  All  the  facts  obtainable  as  to  the  life  of  the 
couple  go  to  show  that  Jean  on  no  occasion  proved  a 
traitor.  Throughout  the  eight  years  of  light  and 
darkness,  when  there  was  a  variety  of  circumstances 
sufficient  to  cool  the  ardour  of  most  lovers,  the  two 
understood  each  other  to  a  nicety.  There  is  one  in- 
cident which  will  ever  redound  to  the  credit  of 
Bonnie  Jean.  In  itself  it  is  the  highest  monument 
in  favour  of  her  prudence  and  the  intensity  of  her 
love.  The  daughter  of  the  poet,  born  in  March, 
1 791,  was  brought  home  to  the  house  of  Burns,  and 
taken  charge  of  by  Mrs.  Burns.  The  child  was  soon 
after  found  by  Jean's  father  in  the  same  cradle  with 
a  babe  of  her  own,  and,  in  order  to  keep  down  din, 
she  replied  to  her  father  that  the  second  baby  was 
one  of  whom  she  was  taking  temporary  charge  for  a 
sick  friend.     Jean  brought  up  the   child   to   woman- 


8  BONNIE  JEAN. 

hood,  always  putting  it  on  an  equality  with  her  own 
offspring.  We  don't  think  it  is  too  much  to  say  that 
one  woman  out  of  three  would  have  failed,  and 
failed  miserably,  in  Jean  Armour's  position.  Our 
remark  places  a  reflection  upon  the  mammoth  genius 
whom  Jean  adored  and  served  with  a  fidelity  seldom 
exhibited  in  the  pages  of  romance  and  history ;  but 
when  we  take  into  account  that  the  stream  of  poesy 
was  often  kept  back  by  the  sluices  of  adversity,  mis- 
fortune, and  occasional  bacchanalian  enjoyments,  we 
cannot,  if  we  are  to  display  the  undisguised  truth, 
come  to  any  other  conclusion.  Spite  of  the  oppor- 
tunities for  display  of  the  old  Adam,  Jean  Armour 
adopted  the  attitude  of  a  trained  diplomat.  We 
shall  mainly  attribute  her  success  to  her  homeliness, 
amiability,  sound  common  sense,  and  long-suffer- 
ing. 

When  we  sometimes  stroll  past  Alloway  Kirkyard, 
an  incident  full  of  the  richest  pathos,  generally 
crosses  our  mind.  The  incident  displays  the  hero- 
ism of  Bonnie  Jean.  In  the  Spring  after  Burns  died, 
two  men,  passing  through  Dumfries,  visited  St. 
Michael's  Churchyard.  Being  strangers,  they  did 
not  know  where  Burns'  remains  lay.  They  observed 
a  female  in  deep  mourning,  sitting  on  the  ground, 
and  one  of  them  addressed  her  as  follows: — "Mis- 
tress, we  are  strangers,  and  we  would  feel  obliged  if 
you  could  show  us  the  grave  of  Bums."  Pointing 
to  the  mound  at  her  feet,  and  bursting  into  tears,  she 
answered,  "That  is  his  grave,  and  I  am  his  widow." 
The  two  men  apologized  for  their  intrusion,  ten- 
dered their  heartfelt  condolence,  and  left  the  spot  to 
study  the  picture.  Had  the  spirit  of  the  bard  been 
hovering  around  the  spot,  wouldn't  there  have  been 
cause  for  thankfulness  at  the  attitude  of  Jean  ?  The 
world  was  not  the  same   to   her   since   her   dearest 


BONNIE  JEAN.  9 

friend  was  not  of  it ;  the  poetry  of  cold  type  was  not 
the  poetry  of  the  human  being. 

Before  we  close  this  paper  we  shall  give  an  ac- 
count of  another  incident,  equally  reliable.  One 
beautiful  vSaturday  in  the  Autumn  of  1893,  we  were 
standing  on  the  auld  brig  o'  Doon.  A  fierce  noon- 
day sun  caused  visitors  to  seek  the  sylvan  shade,  the 
trouts  ever  and  anon  jumped  out  of  the  water,  the 
larks  rendered  a  paean  of  praise,  the  trees  and 
the  flowers  sent  forth  their  sweetest  perfume,  and 
the  whirr  of  the  reaping  machine  spoke  of  the  good- 
ness of  the  Wise  Providence  who  rules  over  us. 

On  the  road  was  an  aged  figure — a  pilgrim  at  the 
shrine  of  Robin.  He  was  talkative — he  came  from 
America.  "  I  have,"  he  said,  "long  wished  to  see 
the  auld  clay  biggin,  and  the  banks  and  braes  o' 
Bonnie  Doon ;  to-day  I  have  seen  them,  and  shall  go 
home  to  die  in  peace. "  Unquestionably  noble  words. 
They  inform  us  of  what  the  poet  did  for  humanity. 
Not  Jean  alone,  but  all  mankind  mourned  his  loss; 
and  this  American  wanderer,  perhaps  living  near  the 
Alleghany  ranges,  could  not  think  he  had  done  his 
duty  on  earth  without  crossing  the  wide  Atlantic  to 
pay  his  devotions  at  the  shrine  of  Burns.  There  is 
a  religion  in  the  two  incidents  more  deep  and  more 
vital  than  that  of  the  bellicose  Christians  who  parade 
their  sanctity. 

We  hold  Jean's  name  in  honour  because  she  hero- 
ically and  cheerfully  did  her  part  as  the  wife  of 
Burns;  and  moreover,  did  she  not,  throughout  the 
thirty-eight  years  of  her  widowhood — she  was  but 
twenty-three  years  of  age  when  she  married — defend 
the  poet's  name  and  fame  when  numerous  attacks 
were  made  by  imscrupulous  critics  and  nonentities  ? 
The  Doon  and  the  Ayr,  whose  praises  are  chanted 
in  every  corner  of  the  habitable  globe — in    the   de- 


lo  BONNIE  JEAN. 

mesne s  of  the  rich,  and  in  the  cotters'  houses  and  log 
cabins  of  the  poor — are  as  classical  as  the  Nile  and 
the  Ganges;  Manchline,  Tarbolton,  and  AUoway, 
are  as  famous  as  Jerusalem,  Bethlehem,  and  Jericho; 
but  the  rushing  waters  of  sentiment,  although  they 
sometimes  benumb  the  tongue  and  stay  the  pen, 
shall  not  prevent  us  from  laying  this  wreath  upon 
the  grave  of  Bonnie  Jean. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  II 

BONNIE  JEAN. 


By  James  Gillan. 


A  picture  hangs  upon  the  wall 
Of  this  dim  city  home  of  mine, 
And  ofttimes  as  my  glances  fall 
Upon  its  face  it  seems  to  shine, 
And  smile  as  in  the  days  gone  bye, 
When  Cupid  drew  aside  the  screen 
That  hid  from  his  enraptured  eye 
The  beaming  face  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

The  colour  mantles  on  the  brow 
O'er  which  the  raven  love  locks  play 
The  swarthy  face  once  more  aglow 
Beams  like  a  sunny  day  in  May, 
And  in  the  jet  black  eyes  again 
The  tender  light  of  love  is  seen 
And  from  the  lips  a  dulcet  strain 
Keeps  murmuring  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

A  cloud  across  the  forehead  creeps, 

A  darker  flash  in  the  eyes 

As  some  stern  thought  unbridled  sweeps — 

Or  memories  of  base  deeds  arise 

To  fill  his  human  heart  with  ire 

And  raise  an  anger  swift  and  keen. 

Yet  still  the  lips  like  some  sweet  lyre 

Keep  murmuring  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

I  see  him  in  my  fancy  rove 

Through  smiling  meadows — round  the  hills. 

I  hear  his  laughter  in  the  grove, 

I  hear  his  music  by  the  rills 


12  BONNIE  JEAN. 

That  tarried  in  their  winding  flight 
Beneath  the  silv'ry  moon  at  'een 
While  he  sang  to  the  starry  night 
The  praises  of  his  Bonnie  Jean. 

He  tuned  all  tender  strings  that  lie 
Beneath  the  keyboard  of  the  heart 
From  music  scrolls  that  filled  the  sk}^. 
And  poesy  held  the  leaves  apart 
While  he  sang  loud,  for  coming  days 
A  song  more  sweet  than  e'er  had  been 
Sent  up  from  mortal  heart  in  praise 
Of  Scotland  and  his  Bonnie  Jean. 

•I  do  not  deem  my  cottage  poor, 
This  picture  is  a  richer  gem 
Than  any  glittering  Kohenoor 
Upon  a  princely  diadem, 
And  like  a  star  it  points  the  way 
By  Scotia's  choral  pastimes  green 
Where  sweetest  memories  may  stray 
With  Robbie  and  his  Bonnie  Jean. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  13 

BONNIE  JEAN. 


By  Dr.   Robert  Chambers. 
From  ''The  Life  and  Writings  of  Robert  Burns y 


***  In  the  first  of  these  versicles,  he  alludes  to  the 
attachment  which  he  had  found  for  the  most  cele- 
brated of  all  his  heroines,  and  his  subsequent  wife, 
Jean.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  master- mason 
named  Armour,  residing  in  the  village  of  Mauchline. 
Her  husband  has  perfectly  described  her  at  this  pe- 
riod of  her  life — 

'A  dancin',  sweet,  young  handsome  quean, 
Of  guileless  heart  !' 

The  acquaintance  seems  to  have  commenced  not 
long  after  the  poet  took  up  his  residence  at  Moss- 
giel.  There  was  a  race  at  Mauchline  in  the  end  of 
April,  and  there  it  was  customary  for  the  young 
men,  with  little  ceremony,  to  invite  such  girls  as  they 
liked  off  the  street  into  a  humble  dancing-hall,  where 
a  fiddler  had  taken  up  his  station  to  give  them 
music.  The  payment  of  a  penny  for  a  dance  was 
held  by  the  minstrel  as  guerdon  sufficient.  Burns 
and  Jean  happened  to  be  in  the  same  dance,  but  not 
as  partners,  when  some  confusion  and  a  little  merri- 
ment was  excited  by  his  dog  tracking  his  footsteps 
through  the  room.  He  playfully  remarked  to  his 
partner  that  '  he  wished  he  could  get  any  of  the  las- 
sies to  like  him  as  well  as  his  dog  did. '  A  short 
while  after,  he  passed  through  the  Mauchline  wash- 
ing-green, where  Jean,  who  had  overheard  his  re- 
mark, was  bleaching  clothes.  His  dog  running 
over  the  clothes,  the  young  maiden  desired  him  to 
call   it   off,    and   this   led   them   into    conversation. 


14  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Archly  referring  to  what  passed  at  the  dance,  she 
asked  him  if  '  he  had  yet  got  any  of  the  Lassies  to  Hke 
him  as  well  as  his  dog  ?'  From  that  time  their  in- 
timacy commenced.  The  affections  of  Burns  were 
quickly  centred  upon  her.  There  were  other 
maidens  in  Mauchline,  some  with  weightier  attrac- 
tions, but  no  one  could  henceforth  compete  with 
Jean.     So  he  himself  tells  us: — 

In  Mauchline  there  dwells  six  proper  young  belles, 

The  pride  of  the  place  and  its  neighborhood  a', 
Their  carriage  and  dress  a  stranger  would  guess, 

In  Lon'on  or  Paris,  they'd  gotten  it  a'. 
Miss  Miller  is  fine,  Miss  Markland's  divine. 

Miss  Smith  she  has  wit  and  Miss  Betty  is  braw, 
There's  beauty  and  fortune  to  get  wi'  Miss  Morton  ; 

But  Armour's  the  Jewel  for  me  o'  them  a'. 
*  *  *  * 

The  commencement  of  Burns'  acquaintance  with 
his  Jean  has  already  been  touched  upon.  This  young 
woman  had  now  been  for  upwards  of  a  year  tne  god- 
dess of  his  idolatry.  He  had,  rather  oddly,  written 
no  songs  which  can  be  certainly  traced  as  in  her 
honour;  but  he  had  expressed  his  admiration  of  her 
in  his  Epistle  to  Davie,  in  the  Address  to  The  Deil, 
and  The  Vision.  When  it  appeared  in  the  Spring  of 
1786,  that  love  had  become  transgression.  Burns  and 
brother  were  beginning  to  fear  that  their  farm  would 
prove  a  ruinous  concern.  He  yielded,  nevertheless, 
to  the  wish  of  his  unhappy  partner  to  acknowledge 
her  as  his  wife,  and  thus  repair  as  far  as  possible  the 
consequences  of  their  eiTor.  He  gave  her  such  an 
acknowledgment  in  writing,  a  document  sufficient  in 
the  law  of  Scotland  to  constitute  what  is  called  an 
irregular,  though  perfectly  valid,  marriage.  Jean 
probably  expected  that,  if  her  parents  were  first 
made  acquainted  with  her  fault  by  the  announce- 
ment of  clandestine  nuptials,  they  would  look   more 


BONNIE  JEAN.  15 

mildly  upon  it;  for  such  is  a  common  course  of  cir- 
cumstances in  her  rank  of  life  in  Scotland.  But  it 
was  otherwise  in  this  case.  Knowing  well  that 
Burns  was  not  in  flourishing-  circumstances  it  ap- 
peared to  the  father  that  marriage,  so  far  from 
mending  the  matter,  made  it  worse.  Burns  came 
forth  on  this  occasion  with  all  the  manliness  which 
his  character  would  have  led  us  to  expect.  He  ad- 
mitted the  hopelessness  of  his  present  circumstances; 
but  he  offered  to  go  out  to  Jamaica  in  the  hope  of 
bettering  them,  and  of  coming  home  in  a  few  years 
and  claiming  Jean  as  his  wife.  If  this  plan  should 
not  meet  Mr.  Armour's  approbation,  he  was  willing 
to  descend  even  to  the  condition  of  a  common  la- 
bourer, in  order  to  furnish  means  for  the  present 
support  of  his  v/ife  and  her  expected  offspring.  It 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  one  of  his  hopes  that  the 
wondrous  poems  lying  in  the  table-drawer  at  Moss- 
giel  could  help  in  aught  to  lighten  the  burden  he 
was  willing  to  incur.  Mr.  Armour  met  every  pro- 
posal with  rejection.  The  course  he  took  will  only 
Idc  intelligible  if  w^e  reflect  that  in  Scottish  village 
there  is  little  of  the  delicacy  as  to  female  purity 
which  prevails  in  more  refined  circles.  Armour  re- 
flected that  his  daughter,  if  free  from  her  connec- 
tions with  the  ill-starred  poet,  might  yet  hope  for  a 
comfortable  settlement  in  life.  He  therefore  an- 
nounced his  resolution,  if  possible  to  annul  the 
marriage,  such  as  it  was.  Yielding  to  his  demand, 
probably  preferred  in  no  mild  mood,  Jean  surren- 
dered the  paper  to  her  angry  father.  There  were 
some  violent  and  distressing  scenes  between  the 
parties.  Not  endowed  by  nature  with  very  deep  or 
abiding  feelings,  and  depressed  in  spirit  by  the  sense 
of  her  error,  Jean,  to  the  utter  confusion  of  Burns, 
appeared  less  willing  to  cleave  to  her  husband  than 


1 6  BONNIE  JEAN. 

to  her  father.  The  poet  viewed  her  cx-riduct  witli 
deep  resentment,  and  was  thrown  by  it  into  a  slate 
of  mind,  which,  according  to  his  own  confession, 
'  had  very  nearly  given  him  one  or  two  of  the  prin- 
cipal qualifications  for  a  place  among  those  who  have 
lost  the  chart  and  mistaken  the  reckoning  of  ration- 
ality.' He  instantly  made  up  his  mind  to  exile  from 
his  much-beloved  country.  His  poverty  and  impru- 
dence made  that  course  desirable,  and,  after  the 
mortification  he  had  met  with,  he  had  no  longer  the 
wish  to  slay  at  home.  He  therefore  agreed  with  a 
Dr.  Douglas  to  go  out  to  Jamaica  as  a  book-keeper 
on  his  estate.  To  raise  money  for  his  passage,  Mr. 
Hamilton  advised  him  to  publish  his  poems  by  sub- 
scripti(ni,  believing  that  his  name  had  already  se- 
cured him  a  sufficient  number  of  friends  to  make  the 
sale  of  a  vSmall  volume  certain,  and  to  a  moderate 
extend  profitable.  We  have  seen,  from  many  ex- 
pressions in  the  poems  of  the  past  writer,  that  Burns 
was  in  a  stale  of  mind  regarding  them  to  make  this 
plan  highly  acceptable  to  him.  Accordingly,  with- 
out any  loss  of  time,  proposals  or  subscription  papers 
were  thrown  off  and  circulated  amongst  the  friends 
of  the  unfortunate  bard. 


Though  he  had  been  effectually  separated,  or,  it 
might  be  said  divorced  from  Jean  Armour,  and  was 
much  incensed  by  her  conduct  and  that  of  her  rela- 
tives, he  had  never  been  able  to  detach  her  from  his 
heart.  Gusts  of  passion  for  different  individuals  had 
passed  through  his  bosom,  even  while  resting  in 
what  he  called  '  the  Greenland  bay  of  difference'  in 
Edinburgh ;  but  still  the  image  of  the  simple  Mauch- 
line  girl  resided  at  the  core,  and  would  not  quit  its 
place.     On  now  returning  to  his  rustic   retreat,  and 


BONNIE  JEAN.  17 

accidentally  meeting  her,  his  ancient  flames  were  re- 
vived, and  he  was  welcomed  to  her  father's  house. 
In  a  short  time  the  pair  became  as  intimate  as  ever. 


The  bachelor  life  of  Burns  was  now  drawing  to  a 
close.  His  new  home  proved  wholly  unready  for 
the  reception  of  his  wife,  he  had  obtained  temporary 
accomodation  for  her  at  a  neighboring  farm.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  the  first  week  of  December  (1788)  he 
conducted  Mrs.  Burns  to  the  banks  of  the  Nith. 
During  the  preceeding  week  two  servant-lads  and  a 
servant-girl  had  migrated  thither  from  Mauchline, 
with  some  cart-loads  of  the  plenishing  made  by  Mor- 
rison ;  besides,  I  presume,  a  handsome  four-posted 
bed,  which  Mrs.  Dunlop  had  contributed  as  her  mar- 
riage gift.  The  servant-lass,  named  Elizabeth 
Smith,  still  lives  at  Irvine  [185 1].  She  reports  that 
Mrs.  Burns  was  anxious,  on  going  into  a  district 
where  she  was  wholly  a  stranger,  to  obtain  the  ser- 
vices of  a  young  woman  whom  she  already  knew. 
Elizabeth  was  engaged  accordingly,  but  not  till  her 
father,  in  his  anxiety  for  her  moral  wellfare,  had 
exacted  a  formal  promise  from  Burns  to  keep  a  strict 
watch  over  her  conduct,  and,  in  particular,  to  exer- 
cise her  duly  in  the  Catechism,  in  both  of  which 
points  she  admits  he  was  most  faithful  to  his  prom- 
ise. About  a  mile  below  Ellisland  there  is  a  small 
tract  of  ground  which  has  once  been  encircled  by  the 
waters  of  the  Nith,  partly  through  natural  channels 
and  partly  through  an  artificial  trench.  Here  rises 
an  old  dismantled  tower,  with  more  modern  build- 
ings adjoining  to  it  on  two  of  its  sides — the  whole 
forming  the  farm-buildings  of  The  Isle ;  for  such  is 
the  name  of  the  place,  still  remained,  although  one 
of  the  ancient  water   courses   is   now    only   a   rusty 


i8  BONNIE  JEAN. 

piece  of  ground.  The  place,  which  has  an  antiqua- 
ted, and  even  somewhat  romantic  appearance,  was 
the  property  of  Mr.  Newell,  writer  in  Dumfries, 
whose  family  had  lived  in  it  during  the  Summer,  but 
only  for  a  short  time,  in  consequence  of  certain  noc- 
turnal sounds  in  the  old  tower  having  led  to  a  belief 
that  it  was  haunted.  What  added  a  little,  or  per- 
haps not  a  little  to  the  eerieness  of  the  spot,  was  that 
the  old  burying-ground  of  Dunscore,  containing  the 
sepulchre  of  the  dreaded  persecutor,  Grierson,  of 
Lagg,  was  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  Such 
was  the  '  moated  grange, '  at  which  the  illustrious 
poet  welcomed  home  the  mistress  of  his  heart — the 
fascinating,  never  to  be  forgotten,  Jean  Armour. 
We  may  well  believe  that  it  was  a  time  of  great 
happiness  to  Burns  when  he  first  saw  his  mistress 
installed  in  her  little  mansion,  and  felt  himself  the 
master  of  the  household,  however  humble — looked 
up  to  by  a  wife  as  '  the  goodman  '  and  by  a  host  of 
dependants  as  '  the  master.'  Who  can  refrain  from 
sympathizing  with  the  great  ill-requited  poet  in  this 
brief  exception  from  a  painful  life. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  19 

BONNIE  JEAN. 


By  Robert  Burns  Begg. 

Re-printed  from  the   Burns  Chronicle,   No.  /,  by  permission 
of  the  author. 


Jean  Armour  was  born  in  February  1767,  at 
Mauchline,  Ayrshire,  where  her  father  James  Ar- 
mour was  a  respectable  master-mason  or  contractor, 
in  good  employment  and  enjoying  the  confidence 
and  esteem  of  the  district  in  which  he  was  located, 
He  appears  to  have  been  exemplary  in  his  life  but 
like  many  worthy  men  he  was  somewhat  rigid  and 
austere  in  his  disposition  and  belonged  to  the  stricter 
sect  of  Religionists  called  the  "  Auld  Lichts. "  Mrs. 
Armour  seems  to  have  been  an  affectionate  and  de- 
voted wife  and  mother,  but  her  mental  bias  differed 
from  that  of  her  husband,  and  appears  to  have  par- 
taken somewhat  of  the  gay  and  frivolous.  They 
had  a  family  of  eleven  children,  whom  they  reared 
and  maintained  creditably  and  comfortably ;  for  Mr. 
Armour,  in  addition  to  the  income  derived  from  his 
trade,  was  proprietor  of  house  property  of  some 
value  in  the  village.  His  daughter,  Jean,  was  a 
bright  sprightly  and  affectionate  girl,  and  she  was 
naturally  adored  by  her  parents — her  father  espe- 
cially being  intensely  proud  of  her.  On  her  part, 
she  seems  to  have  had  a  deep  regard  and  veneration 
for  her  father,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  she, 
at  the  most  trying  crisis  of  a  young  girl's  life,  was 
ready  at  his  command  to  sacrifice  the  dearest  and 
tenderest  aspirations  of  her  nature. 

Her  childhood  was  spent  at  Mauchline  amid  the 
usual  associations  surrotmding  Scottish  village  life, 


20  BONNIE  JEAN. 

and  when  Burns,  (then  in  his  26th  year)  along  with 
his  widowed  mother  and  his  brothers  and  sisters, 
came  to  reside  at  Mossinel,  within  a  mile  from 
Manchline,  she  had  barely  emerged  from  her  "  teens. " 
From  the  description  of  her  handed  down  to  us  by 
those  who  knew  her  at  this  interesting  period  of  her 
life,  we  gather  that  she  Vv^as  a  remarkably  sweet  and 
attractive  brunette  of  a  bright  affectionate  nature, 
gifted  with  an  attractive  smiling  face,  lighted  up  by 
a  pair  of  very  bewitching  dark  eyes.  Her  person 
was  well  formed  and  firmly  knit  and  her  movements 
were  at  all  times  graceful  and  easy.  In  manner  she 
was  frank  and  unaffected  and  she  was  kindly  and 
winning  in  her  disposition. 

Her  first  meeting  with  Burns  did  not  occur  until 
sometime  after  the  Burns  family  settled  at  Mossgiel, 
in  March,  1784.  The  meeting  was  a  casual  one,  at 
a  rustic  dance  in  Manchline  on  the  evening  of  the 
village  races.  On  that  occassion  she  does  not  appear 
to  have  had  any  direct  intercourse  w4th  her  future 
husband,  but  she  seems  to  have  treasured  up  in  her 
heart  an  observation  which  she  overheard  him  mak- 
ing in  his  usual  frank  jocular  style.  During  one  of 
the  dances,  some  confusion  and  merriment  was 
occasioned  by  Burns'  collie  persisting  in  tracking  its 
master's  footsteps  and  on  Burns'  attention  being 
drawn  to  his  intrusive  follower,  he  said  :  "I  wish  I 
could  find  a  lassie  as  fond  of  me  as  my  dog."  Very 
shortly  after  the  evening  of  the  dance,  Jean  was  one 
day  engaged  bleaching  linen  on  the  village  green  of 
Mauchline,  when  Burns  passed  accompanied  as  usual 
by  his  faithful  collie.  The  dog  in  its  frisky  frolics 
intruded  itsself  among  the  cloth  Jean  was  spreading 
on  the  grass,  and  she  besought  Burns  to  recall  the 
animal  to  his  side.  Having  complied  with  her  re- 
quest.  Burns  naturally  lingered  to  exchange  obser- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  21 

vations  with  her,  and  her  frank  remark — "  Have  you 
found  any  lassie  yet  to  love  ye  as  well  as  yer  dog  " — 
accompanied,  as  it  no  doubt  was,  by  a  fascinating 
archness  of  expression,  must  have  gone  straight  to 
the  Poet's  highly  impressionable  heart.  With  two 
such  natures  an  acquaintanceship  thus  begun  on  a 
key-note  so  suggestive,  could  lead  to  only  one  result 
— an  immediate  attraction  to  each  other,  by  the 
tenderest  and  most  overpowering  predilection  which 
sways  the  human  heart. 

Opportunities  for  the  lovers  meeting  were  not  in- 
frequent, for  Burns'  favorite  "howff "  during  his 
leisure  hours,  was  the  Whiteford  Arms — an  inn  so 
closely  adjoining  the  Armours'  house,  that  con- 
fidences could  easily  be  interchanged  at  pleasure 
from  one  of  the  back  windows  of  the  inn,  which 
looked  into  one  of  the  windows  of  Jean's  house  be- 
hind. A  close  and  tender  intimacy  thus  became 
established,  and  it  was  maintained  for  upwards  of  a 
year,  by  meetings  as  frequent  as  Burns'  occupation 
on  his  farm  rendered  possible.  Unfortunately,  these 
interviews  had  to  be  conducted  with  the  utmost 
secrecy,  for  both  lovers  well  knew  that  old  Mr. 
Armour's  bitterest  prejudices  would  be  opposed  to 
the  idea  of  Burns  as  his  son-in-law.  This  inter- 
course naturally  led  to  Burns  becoming  attached  to 
Jean  by  a  love  as  ardent,  permanent  and  sincere,  as 
even  his  deep  emotional  nature  was  capable  of  feel- 
ing. We  find  this  passion,  in  its  earliest  stages, 
finding  expression  in  such  versiclesas  The  Mauchline 
Belles  and  The  Mauchline  Lady^  until  it  gradually 
acquires  a  deeper  and  more  earnest  tone,  and  culmin- 
ates at  length  in  the  fervid  impassioned  appeal  on 
Jean's  behalf,  introduced  into  the  admirable  epistle 
to  David  Sillar  : 


22  BONNIE  JEAN. 

"  O,  all  ye  Pow'rs  who  rule  above  ! 
O  Thou  whose  very  self  art  love  ! 
Thou  know'st  my  word  sincere 
The  life  blood  streaming  thro'  my  heart, 
Or  my  more  dear  Immortal  part 

Is  not  more  fondly  dear  ! 
When  heart  carroding  care  and  grief 

Deprive  my  soul  of  rest, 
Her  dear  idea  brings  relief, 

And  solace  to  my  breast. 
Thou  being  all-seeing, 

O  hear  my  fervent  pray'r  ! 
Still  take  her,  and  make  her, 

Thy  most  peculiar  care  !" 

Was  ever  weak  woman  thus  wo'ed — and  v/ho  can 
wonder  if  the  simple  hearted  village  maiden,  in  all 
the  loving  trust  of  her  affectionate  and  confiding 
nature,  blindly  surrendered  herself  to  a  lover  so 
impassioned,  and  who  could  woo  so  effectively  ? 

"  Who  made  the  heart,  'tis  He  alone 
-.Decidedly  can  try  us, 
He  knows  each  chord  its  varying  tone, 

Each  spring  its  various  bias  : 
Then  at  the  balance  let's  be  mute, 

We  never  can  adjust  it ; 
What's  done  we  partly  may  compute. 
But  know  not  what's  resisted." 

At  length  the  time  arrived  when  concealment  of 
their  tender  intercourse  was  no  longer  possible,  and 
in  the  Spring  of  1786,  Burns  and  Jean  signed  a 
formal  acknowledgement  of  marriage,  and  thus  be- 
come legally,  although  informally,  husband  and  wife. 
This  declaration  was  signed  openly  and  was  en- 
trusted to  the  custody  of  Mr.  Robert  Aitken,  Writer, 
Ayr,  a  mutual  friend  both  of  Burns  and  of  the 
Armours.  The  biographers  of  the  Poet,  following 
Lockhart,    look   upon   this    natural    proceeding   on 


BONNIE  JEAN.  23 

Burns'  part  as  an  act  of  mere  justice  and  necessity, 
rather  than  as  a  purely  voluntary  one.  It  is  dfficult 
to  see  v/hy  it  should  be  so  regarded.  His  affection 
for  Jean  was  deep,  permanent  and  sincere,  and  in 
every  way  it  differed  widely  from  the  erratic  and 
ephemeral  attachments  he  was  so  prone  to  form. 
From  the  earliest  period  of  their  acquaintance  he 
seems  to  have  been  drawn  towards  her  by  a  strong 
community  of  feeling,  and  it  is  clear  that  from  the 
first,  he  appropriated  her  as  peculiarly  "his  own" 
in  the  tenderest  sense  of  the  phrase.  The  hopes 
which  he  centred  in  her  were  not  the  mere  ardent 
aspirations  of  the  mxoment,  but  a  fond  and  persistent 
clinging  to  the  happy  prospect  of  life-long  and  lov- 
ing companionship  with  her  in  the  placid  haven  of 
domestic  life.  She  was  undoubtedly  his  beau  ideal  of 
a  wife,  suited  in  every  sense  to  his  nature  and  dis- 
position and  eminently  fitted  in  a  practical  way,  for 
the  line  of  life  he  had  adopted  at  the  time  their  in- 
timacy began.  In  a  letter  which  he  sometime  after- 
wards Vv^rote  to  Mrs.  Dunlop  of  Dunlop,  he  thus 
expresses  his  estimate  of  Jean's  suitability  as  a  wife: 
— "  The  most  placid  good  nature  and  sweetness  of 
disposition,  a  warm  heart  gratefully  devoted  with  all 
its  powers  to  love  me,  vigorous  health,  and  sprightly 
cheerfulness,  set  off  to  the  best  advantage  by  a 
more  than  common  handsome  figure — these  I  think 
in  a  woman  may  make  a  good  wife  though  she 
should  not  have  read  a  page  but  the  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  nor  have  danced  in 
brighter  assembly  than  a  penny  pay  wedding." 

In  the  early  stages  of  their  intimacy  no  immediate 
views  of  marriage  could  be  entertained  by  either  of 
them,  and  at  the  best  their  union  must  have  been  a 
remote,  although  not  the  less,  a  very  real,  as  well  as 
a  very  happy,  prospect.      His  family  had  then  newly 


24  BONNIE  JEAN. 

entered  on  their  tenancy  of  Mossgiel  farm  with  their 
means  sorely  crippled  by  recent  losses  at  Lochlea, 
and  as  month  after  month  sped  over  the  heads  of 
the  happy  lovers,  drawing  the  tender  tie  between 
them  still  closer  and  closer,  their  prospect  of 
marriage  became  more  and  more  remote.  Mossgiel 
farm  had  failed  to  yield  the  return  anticipated  and 
by  the  time  the  declaration  of  marriage  was  signed, 
Burns  had  actually  formed  the  resolution  to  leave 
his  native  land  and  seek  for  better  fortune  in 
Jamaica,  and  it  was  fondly  hoped  that  the  private 
marriage  would  be  regarded  not  only  in  the  light  of 
a  reparation  to  the  Armours,  for  the  distress  entailed 
upon  them,  but  that  it  might  also  secure  for  Jean 
the  shelter  of  her  fathers  roof  until  Burns  had  pro- 
vided for  her  a  home  in  the  country  of  his  adoption. 
In  their  plans  thus  anxiously  and  lovingly  laid, 
the  unfortunate  pair  failed  to  take  into  account  the 
unyielding  prejudice  of  old  Mr.  Armour.  The  in- 
telligence of  his  daughter's  unfortunate  condition 
was  to  him  a  terrible  humiliation,  and  he  is  said  to 
have  swooned  away  under  the  blow,  and  far  from 
the  attempted  reparation  lessening  his  displeasure  it 
only  intensified  his  opposition  to  such  an  extent,  that 
rather  than  entertain  the  prospect  of  Burns  ever 
claiming  his  daughter  as  his  wife,  he  induced  Mr. 
Aitken,  the  custodier  of  the  declaration  of  marriage, 
to  cancel  the  signatures  attached  to  that  document. 
There  is  no  doubt,  that  Jean,  in  her  utter  wretched- 
ness, was  induced  by  filial  love  and  obedience,  to 
acquiesce  in  her  parent's  harsh  and  unjust  proceed- 
ing and  she  was  at  once  sent  off  to  Paisley,  to  live 
with  her  uncle  there,  so  as  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of 
Burns'  seductive  influence.  The  misery  she  must 
have  endured  during  her  temporary  retirement  at 
Paisley,  no  one  can  ever   estimate.     Severed   from 


BONNIE  JEAN.  25 

him  she  had  loved  and  still  loved  so  fondly  and 
blindly,  and  severed  too  by  a  harshness  and  injustice 
to  which  she  had  actually  although  unwillingly  been 
a  party — discarded  in  a  sense  by  the  parents  she 
revered  so  highly,  and  intruded  into  the  house  of 
relatives,  who,  at  the  best,  must  have  regarded  her 
presence  among  them  in  the  light  of  a  painful  neces- 
sity— her  thoughts  must  have  been  little  calculated 
to  impart  either  comfort  or  hopefulness  to  the  pros- 
pect that  lay  before  her. 

To  Burns,  too,  the  rupture  must  have  brought  an 
intolerable  load  of  misery.  He  was  naturally  deeply 
incensed  at  the  treatment  he  had  experienced  at  the 
hands  of  Jean's  parents,  and  he  was  cut  to  the  heart 
at  Jean's  "perfidy,"  as  he  styled  it,  in  allowing  her- 
self to  be  induced  to  repudiate  her  obligations  as  his 
wife.  He  thus  expresses  his  feelings  on  this  painful 
occasion  in  a  letter  to  his  friend,  John  Ballantyne, 
Ayr,  "would  you  believe  it  though  I  had  not  a  hope 
nor  a  wish  to  make  her  mine  after  her  conduct,  yet 
when  he  [Aitken],  told  me  the  names  were  cut  out 
of  the  paper,  my  heart  died  within  me — he  cut  my 
heart  with  the  news."  This  certainly  is  not  the 
language  of  a  man  who  has  been  released  from  an 
unkindly  and  lifelong  bond,  in  which  he  had  invol- 
untarily entangled  himself  from  a  mere  sense  of 
justice. 

It  is  true,  that  in  some  of  his  more  rollicking  let- 
ters to  his  boon  companions  and  more  intimate 
associates,  he  attempts  in  a  spirit  of  bravado  to  make 
light  of  the  calamity  which  had  befallen  him,  but 
the  attempt  is  a  poor  one  at  the  best,  and  every  now 
and  then  expressions  escape  him  which  disclose  only 
too  painfully  the  utter  desolation  of  heart  which 
Jean's  unlooked  for  desertion  had  entailed  upon  him. 
No  student  of  Burns'  life  and  character  would  dream 


26  BONNIE  JEAN. 

of  taking  him  au  serietix  in  letter  of  the  nature  re- 
ferred to,  but  would  rather  prefer  to  gather  his  real 
sentiments  from  the  language  he  employs  in  address- 
ing his  more  staid  and  serious  correspondents,  such 
as  Dr.  Moore,  whom  in  the  Summer  recess  of  1787, 
he  thus  writes: — "  It  was  a  shocking  affair  which  I 
cannot  yet  bear  to  recollect  and  it  had  very  nearly 
given  me  one  or  two  of  the  principal  qualifications 
for  a  place  among  those  who  have  lost  the  chart  and 
mistaken  the  reckoning  of  rationality. "  In  writing 
also  to  Dr.  Arnot,  of  Dalquhatswood,  about  the  same 
period,  he  says,  "  How  I  bore  this,  can  only  be  con- 
ceived, all  powers  of  recital  labour  far  far  behind. 
There  is  a  pretty  large  portion  of  bedlam  in  the  com- 
position of  a  poet  at  any  time,  but  on  this  occasion  I 
was  nine  parts  and  nine-tenths  out  of  ten  stark  star- 
ing mad. " 

His  allusions  to  this  painful  theme  in  his  poetic 
effusions  of  this  period  are  also  crouched  in  a  fervour 
and  sincerity  of  expression  which  leaves  no  doubt  of 
the  depth  and  permanency  of  his  unhappiness.  We 
find  pointed  pathetic  suggestions  of  it  in  his  sonnet 
composed  on  Spring  and  in  the  most  exquisite  of  all 
his  poems — his  address  to  a  mountain  daisy.  We 
find  it  too  expressed  in  plainer  and  more  pointed 
language  in  his  "Ode  to  Ruin." 


' '  With  stern  resolved  despairing  eye, 

I  see  each  aimed  dart, 
For  one  has  cut  my  dearest  tie, 

And  quivers  in  my  heart. 
Then  lowering  and  pouring, 

The  storm  no  more  I  dread  : 
Though  thick'ning  and  black'ning 

Round  my  devoted  head." 


But  the  most  expressive  of  all,  is  his  reference 


to 


BONNIE  JEAN.  27 

the  subject  to  be  found  in  "The  Lament"   which  he 
composed  to  this  occasion. 

"  The  plighted  faith,  the  mutual  flame, 
The  oft  protested  Powers  above, 
The  promised  father's  tender  name  : 
These  were  the  pledges  of  my  love. ' ' 

"  Ye  winged  hours  that  o'er  us  passed. 

Enraptured  more  the  more  enjoyed. 
Your  dear  remembrance  in  my  breast, 

My  fondly  treasured  thoughts  employed. 
That  breast  how  dreary  now  and  void, 

For  her  too  scanty  once  of  room. 
Even  every  ra}^  of  hope  destroy 'd. 

And  not  a  wish  to  glid  the  gloom." 

The  rupture  seems  to  have  occured  early  in  Spring 
and  Jean  did  not  return  from  Paisley  until  July. 
Actuated  by  his  clin[;ing  affection  for  her,  Burns 
seems  to  have  made  an.  effort  to  re-establish  their 
intercourse  immediately  on  her  return  to  her  father's 
house,  but  Mrs.  Armour  repelled  the  Poet's  over- 
tures with  anger  and  disdain,  and  even  Jean  herself, 
influenced  by  her  parents,  seems  to  have  discouraged 
Burns'  well  meant  and  loving  advances.  Fortun- 
ately for  Burns,  he,  unlike  poor  Jean,  had  in  the 
midst  of  these  painful  experiences  many  engrossing 
subjects  to  distract  his  thoughts.  He  had,  in  the 
first  place,  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  his 
poems,  which  he  was  then  engaged  in  seeing  through 
the  press,  at  Kilmarnock.  But  his  most  effectual 
distraction  was  his  brief  but  romantic  engagement 
to  "  Highland  Mary  "  which  however  fickle  and  in- 
consistent it  may  appear  to  be,  actually  occured  dur- 
ing the  interval  which  elapsed  between  Jean's  de- 
sertion and  his  departure  for  Edinburgh,  in  Novem- 
ber, To  Burns,  love  was  an  absolute  and  clamant 
necessity,  and   in   his   desire   to   supplant   Jean,   he 


28  BONNIE  JEAN. 

could  not  have  selected  a  more  endearing  substitute 
than  the  sweet  dairy-maid  at  Coilsfield,  and  the  very 
impetuosity  of  his  solemn  matrimonial  engagement 
with  Mary  Campbell  at  a  time  when  his  circum- 
stances almost  precluded  the  possibility  of  marriage, 
only  affords  proof  of  the  "widowed"  condition  of 
his  heart. 

In  September,  1786,  Jean,  in  the  house  of  her  par- 
ents at  Mauchline,  gave  birth  to  twins — a  boy  and 
girl.  Intelligence  of  the  event  v/as  at  once  com- 
municated to  Burns  at  Mossgiel,  and  arrangements 
were  m.ade  for  transferring  the  boy  to  Mossgiel  to 
be  nurtured  there,  by  the  Poet's  mother  and  sisters, 
while  the  girl  remained  with  its  mother  at  Mauchline. 
The  boy  bore  his  father's  name,  and  in  after  life  he 
attained  to  a  good  position  in  the  Government  Civil 
Service.  The  girl  was  named  Jean  afer  her  mother, 
but  she  died  after  a  brief  existence  of  only  fourteen 
months,  and  was  interred  in  Mauchline  Churchyard. 
The  birth  of  Jean's  children,  did  not  tend  to  pro- 
mote a  reconciliation  with  the  Armours.  On  the 
contrary  it  seems  to  have  embittered  their  prejudices 
more  and  more,  and  in  order  to  make  the  rupture 
permanent  and  complete,  formal  steps  were  taken 
ex  facie  ecclesiae  to  undo  whatever  legal  effect  the 
private  marriage  might  be  supposed  to  have. 

These  unhappy  proceedings  seem  to  have  barely 
terminated  when  Dr.  Blacklock's  suggestion  that 
Burns  should  come  to  Edinburgh,  opened  up  before 
him,  a  new  and  dazzling  prospect,  and  on  27  th 
November,  1786,  he  left  Mossgiel  for  Edinburgh, 
and  did  not  return  until  June  of  the  year  following. 
In  the  interval  Jean  remained  in  her  father's  house 
at  Mauchline,  striving  to  find  in  her  novel  duty  as  a 
mother  some  little  solace  for  her  misery  and  un- 
happiness,  while  Burns,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  ex- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  29 

citing  experiences  of  his  first  winter  in  the  Scottish 
Metropolis,  found  his  thoughts  oft  reverting  to  Jean, 
at  Mauchline.  Writing  to  Gavin  Hamilton,  in  the 
beginning  of  1787,  he  says,  "  to  tell  the  truth  I  feel 
a  miserable  blank  in  my  heart  from  the  want  (jf 
her."  It  is  not  surprising  therefore  to  find  that  on 
his  return  from  Edinburgh,  in  the  following  summer, 
his  first  thought  is  **his  Jean  "  and  instead  of  taking 
up  his  residence  at  Mossgiel,  he  puts  up  at  the 
Whiteford  Arms,  and  he  seems  to  have  remained 
there  for  several  days,  previous  to  his  secret  pil- 
grimage to  Argyleshire,  to  ascertain  the  particulars 
of  Mary  Campbell's  sad  and  untimely  death. 

His  reason  for  taking  up  his  abode  at  "Johnnie 
Dows,"  must  have  been  his  desire  to  renew  his  lov- 
ing intercourse  with  Jean,  and  he  accordingly  called 
at  the  Armours'  house  immediately  on  his  arrival  at 
Mauchline,  ostensibly,  according  to  his  own  state- 
ment, simply  to  see  "his  daughter"  then  an  infant 
of  barely  nine  months,  but  no  doubt  the  child's 
mother  was  a  still  more  potent  attraction.  One  can 
fancy  the  rapture  with  which  the  lovers  must  have 
met  after  their  painful  and  protracted  severance. 
Their  mutual  affection  remained  unabated  and  but 
for  the  injudiciousness  of  Jean's  parents,  a  complete 
re-imion  would  no  doubt  have  been  the  immediate 
result.  Burns'  proud  nature  had  been  sorely 
wounded  by  the  harsh  and  disdainful  treatment  he 
had  received  during  the  previous  summer,  and  his 
resentment  towards  Jean's  parents  was  intensified 
by  having  super-added  to  it  a  feeling  of  utter  con- 
tempt for  their  "mean  servility"  when  he  found 
himself — owing  to  the  change  in  his  worldly  pros- 
pects— received  by  them  with  great  civility  and  with 
every  indication  of  their  desire  to  promote  the  union 
which    they   had    persistently   rejected    only    a    few 


30  BONNIE  JEAN. 

months  before. 

The  contempt  which  Burns  felt  at  this  sudden 
change  of  treatment,  and  the  motives  from  which  it 
sprung  was  too  deep  to  be  easily  overcome,  and 
although  it  does  not  seem  to  have  in terf erred  in  any 
way  with  his  loving  intercourse  v/ith  Jean,  it  pre- 
vented him  from  taking  immediate  steps  to  secure 
her  happiness  by  re-instating  her  in  her  position  as 
his  wife. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  feeling,  Burns  again 
returned  to  Edinburgh  for  a  brief  temporary  visit, 
leaving  Jean  and  her  child  behind  him  in  her  father's 
house  at  Mauchline  After  spending  sometime  in 
Edinburgh  and  visiting  at  Harveston,  Ochtertyre, 
and  elsewhere,  he  returned  to  Edinburgh  in  the  end 
of  October.  By  this  time  it  is  clear  that  he  had  de- 
cided on  a  definite  and  practical  means  of  livelihood 
for  himself  and  those  dependant  upon  him,  and  in 
accordance  therewith,  he  makes  an  excursion  to 
Dumfriesshire  to  inspect  the  farm  of  Ellisland, 
which  he  contemplated  leasing.  In  combination 
with  his  farming  project  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
securing  an  appointment  in  the  excise,  so  as  to  have 
"his  commission  in  his  pocket  for  any  emergency  of 
fortune." 

In  this  carefully  planned  and  thoroughly  sensible 
scheme  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  Burns  had 
uppermost  in  his  heart  a  desire  to  find  a  suitable 
home  for  his  wife  and  children,  and  when  in  the  end 
of  January  1788,  in  the  very  heart  of  his  laboured 
love- traffic,  with  his  "  divine  Clarinda,"  intelligence 
is  conveyed  to  him  in  Edinburgh  that  poor  Jean  is 
once  more  under  a  cloud  on  his  account,  he  acts  with 
a  promtitude  and  practical  effect  which  is  clearly 
indicative  of  a  preconceived  and  deliberate  resolution. 
At  the  time  he  received  the  intelligence  he  was  dis- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  31 

abled  by  an  injury  to  one  of  his  knees  and  he  was  pre- 
vented from  hastening  to  Jean's  side  as  he  otherwise 
would  have  done.  He,  however,  wrote  at  once,  to 
his  steadfast  friend,  William  Miiir,  of  Tarbolton 
Mill — the  veritable  Willie  of  the  now  famed  "  Willie's 
Mill  " — and  solicited  him  and  his  wife  to  receive 
Jean  into  their  house,  until  he — as  he  in  nautical 
phrase  states  in  a  letter  to  his  sea-faring  friend 
Brown — "can  himself  take  command."  In  little 
more  than  a  fortnight  he  is  on  his  way  to  Mossgiel, 
and  immediately  on  his  arrival  he  visits  Jean  in  her 
retirement,  and  in  his  own  language  ' '  reconciles  her 
to  her  mother  ;  takes  a  room  for  her,  and  takes  her 
to  his  arms."  After  a  brief  visit  to  Edinburgh  in 
the  beginning  of  March,  Burns  is  back  in  Mauchline 
beside  his  wife,  before  the  end  of  the  month.  Ten 
days  previously  Jean  had  again  given  birth  to  twins 
— two  girls — both  of  whom  died  a  few  days  after- 
wards, and  so  soon  as  the  state  of  her  health  per- 
mitted, the  reunited  lovers  went  through  a  simple 
and  binding  formality  in  the  business  Chambers  of 
Gavin  Hamilton,  Writer,  in  Mauchline,  and  Jean 
was  once  more,  and  openly  reinstated  in  her  position 
as  Burns'  wife.  This  marriage  was  solemnly  con- 
firmed by  the  Kirk  Session  of  Mauchline,  on  the  5th 
of  August,  and  Burns  and  his  wife  took  up  their 
abode  temporarily  in  a  house  in  Mauchline,  now 
forming  the  corner  house  of  the  street  called  Back 
Causeway  overlooking  the  Churchyard  of  Mauchline. 
Here  in  a  house  of  two  rooms,  Jean  spent  nearly 
four  months  of  unalloyed  happiness,  after  two  years 
of  deep  mental  anguish  to  both  her  and  her  husband. 
Happily  this  was  all  now  at  an  end,  and  Burns  in 
his  correspondence  at  this  period,  breathes  nothing 
but  deep  and  fervent  self-congratulation  on  the  im- 
portant step  he  had  taken.     In  a  letter  written  by 


32  BONNIE  JEAN. 

liim,  three  months  after  the  re-union,  and  addressed 
to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  of  Dunlop,  he  sa5's  in  reference  to 
his  prospect  of  finding  substantial  hapi^iness  in  his 
married  life  :  "To  jealousy  or  infidelity  I  am  an 
equal  stranger  ;  my  preservative  from  the  first  is 
the  most  thoroui^h  consciousness  of  her  sentiments 
of  honour,  and  her  attachment  to  me.-  My  antidote 
against  the  last  is  my  long  and  deep-rooted  affection 
for  her.  I  can  easily  fancy  a  more  agreeable  com- 
panion for  my  journey  through  life,  but  upon  my 
honour  I  have  never  seen  the  individual  instance. 
In  household  matters,  of  aptness  to  learn  and 
activity  to  execute,  she  is  eminently  mistress  ;  and 
during  my  absence  in  Nitbsdale  she  is  regularly  and 
constantly  apprenticed  to  my  mother  and  sisters  in 
their  dairy  and  other  rural  business." 

During  the  period  that  Mrs.  Burns  continued  to 
reside  at  Mauchline,  Burns'  time  v/as  almost  equally 
divided  between  that  place  and  Ellisland  at  the 
latter  of  which  he  was  superintending  the  operations 
on  his  farm,  and  especially  the  erection  of  a  new 
dwelling  house,  for  the  accommodation  of  his  wife 
and  children.  The  distance  between  the  two  places, 
was  forty-six  miles,  and  as  the  journey  was  per- 
formed on  horseback.  Burns  often  started  from 
Ellisland  as  early  as  three  in  the  morning.  Daring 
this  period,  his  deep  and  fervent  attachment  to  his 
wife  finds  expression  in  his  exquisite  song,  O'  a'  the 
airts  the  wind  can  b/aiv^  and  the  powerful  effect  of 
this  truly  powerful  love  ode,  is  much  enhanced,  if  it 
is  studied  in  the  light  of  the  loneliness  and  discom- 
fort which  at  this  time  surrounded  Burns  at  Ellisland. 
He  gives  a  graphic  description  of  his  experiences  in 
a  letter  to  Miss  Chalmers:  "  Jean  '  my  Jean  '  is  still 
at  Mauchline,  and  I  am  building  my  house,  for  this 
hovel   that   I    shelter  in,  while  occasionally  here  is 


BONNIE  JEAN.  33 

pervious  to  every  blast  that  blows,  and  every  shower 
that  falls ;  and  I  am  preserved  from  being  chilled  to 
death  by  being  suffocated  with  smoke."  In  an 
atmosphere  so  prosaic  and  uninspiring,  it  is  pleasant 
to  think  of  the  youthful  husband  and  father,  in  his 
loneliness  and  discomfort,  welcoming  the  breeze  as 
laden  with  tender  messages  from  that  humble  home 
in  the  west,  over  which  the  tenderest  feelings  of  his 
heart  hovered  so  fondly. 

We  have  too,  in  connection  with  this  period,  one 
of  the  only  two  letters  which  have  been  preserved, 
addressed  by  Burns  to  his  wife.  It  is  dated  12th 
September,   1788 

**  My  Dear  Love: 

I  received  j^our  kind  letter  with 
a  pleasure  which  no  letter  but  one  from  you  could 
have  given  me.  I  dream  of  you  the  whole  night 
long,  but  alas!  I  fear  it  will  be  three  weeks  yet  ere 
I  can  hope  for  the  happiness  of  seeing  you.  My 
harvest  is  going  on ;  I  have  some  to  cut  down  still 
but  I  put  in  two  stacks  to-day,  so  I  am  as  tired  as  a 
dog.  *         *         *         *  J   have   written   my 

long  thought  on  letter  to  Mr.  Graham,  Commissioner 
of  Excise,  and  have  sent  a  sheet  full  of  poetry  be- 
sides. Now  I  talk  of  poetry,  I  had  a  fine  strathspey 
among  my  hands,  to  make  verses  to,  for  Johnson's 
collection,  which   I  intend,  as  my  hone}rmoon  song." 

The  house  at  EUisland  was  not  completed  at  the 
time  expected,  although  Burns  supervised  the  opera- 
tions with  a  zeal  and  anxiety  suggestive  more  of 
the  ardour  of  the  lover  than  the  mere  urgency  of  the 
husband  and  father.  His  appeal  to  his  joiner, 
in  regard  to  the  delay  in  the  building  operations,  is 
unique,  and  must  have  formed  a  genuine  novelty  in 
the  usual  correspondence  connected  with  that 
worthy  tradesman's  business : 


34  BONNIE  JEAN. 

' '  Necessity  obliges  me  to  go  into  my 
new  house  even  before  it  be  plastered.  I  will  in- 
habit the  one  end  until  the  other  is  finished.  About 
three  weeks  more  I  think  will  at  farthest  be  my  time 
beyond  which  I  cannot  stay  in  this  present  house. 
If  ever  you  wished  to  deserve  the  blessing  of  him 
that  was  ready  to  perish;  if  ever  you  were  in  a 
situation  that  a  little  kindness  would  have  rescued 
you  from  many  evils ;  if  ever  you  hope  to  find  rest 
in  future  states  of  untried  being,  get  these  matters 
of  mine  ready." 

In  spite  of  this  fervid  appeal  the  house  was  not  fit 
for  occupancy  before  winter  set  in,  and  Bums  was 
obliged  to  secure  a  temporary  residence  in  "the  Isle, " 
a  romantic  spot,  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Nith, 
about  a  mile  from  Ellisland.  Here,  in  the  first  week 
of  December,  1788,  he  brought  his  young  wife,  pre- 
ceded by  two  servant  lads  and  a  servant  girl,  and 
some  cart  loads  of  furniture  and  other  household 
plenishing.  Who  can  doubt  the  joy  and  pride  with 
which  Mrs.  Burns  rejoined  her  husband  in  her  new 
home,  and  his  happiness  too  was,  as  may  easily  be 
imagined,  in  every  sense  complete.  Two  months 
later,  in  writing  to  a  correspondent  in  Edinburgh, 
he  bursts  into  the  following  glowing  rhapsody,  which 
must  be  regarded  as  merely  the  reflex  of  the  happi- 
ness he  himself  was  then  experiencing:  "Love  is 
the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  human  enjoyment.  All 
the  pleasures,  all  the  happiness  of  my  humble  com- 
peers flow  immediately  and  directly  from  this 
delightful  source.  It  is  the  spark  of  celestial  fire 
which  lights  up  the  wintry  hut  of  poverty,  and 
makes  the  cheerful  mansion,  warm,  comfortable, 
and  gay.  It  is  the  examination  of  Divinity,  that 
preserves  the  sons  and  daughters  of  rustic  labour 


BONNIE  JEAN.  35 

from  degenerating  into  the  brutes  with  which  they 
daily  hold  converse.  Without  it,  life  to  the  poor  in- 
mates of  the  cottage  would  be  a  damning  gift." 

After  a  brief  but  happy  period  of  six  months  spent 
at  "the  Isle,"  possession  was  at  length  obtained  of 
their  own  house  at  Ellisland,  and  about  three 
months  afterwards  Mrs.  Burns  gave  birth  to  a  son, 
named  Francis  Wallace,  in  compliment  to  Burns' 
steadfast  friend,  Mrs,  Dunlop,  who  claimed  descent 
from  the  Scottish  Patriot.  On  the  occasion  of  this 
birth.  Burns'  mother  and  sisters  came  to  Ellisland, 
and  affectionately  nursed  Mrs.  Burns  through  her 
period  of  weakness  and  relieved  her  of  the  household 
and  dairy  duties.  They  brought  with  them  the 
eldest  son,  Robert,  now  a  boy  of  three  years  of  age, 
who  had,  ever  since  his  birth,  resided  with  his 
grandmother  and  aunts,  at  Mossgiel,  The  warmest 
and  most  cordial  love  existed  between  Mrs.  Burns, 
and  the  different  members  of  her  husband's  family. 
In  particular,  she  was  affectionately  attached  to 
Burns'  youngest  sister,  Isobel,  afterwards  Mrs.  Begg, 
— then  a  bright  intelligent  girl,  only  four  years  her 
junior,  and  this  attachment  continued  unbroken 
until  it  was  severed  by  death,  nearly  half  a  century 
later. 

The  experiences  of  Burns  and  his  wife  at  Ellisland 
were  all  that  heart  could  desire.  He  was  leading  a 
quiet  domesticated  yet  active  life,  and  alike  in  body 
and  mind  was  experiencing  the  full  benefit  of  it, 
while  his  wife  in  the  loving  companionship  of  her 
husband,  and  in  the  sweet  cares  of  her  family  and 
household,  found  all  that  her  womanly  nature  re- 
quired to  fill  to  overflowing  her  cup  of  happiness. 
In  a  hitherto  unpublished  poem  by  Burns,  commun- 
icated to  us  just  as  we  were  going  to  press,  we  have 
the  following  eloquent  expression  of  contentment, 


36  BONNIE  JEAN. 

love,    and  happiness,    which    formed    the     "home 
atmosphere  "  of  the  poet  and  his  wife: 

"  To  gild  her  worth  I  asked  no  wealthy  dower, 
My  toil  could  feed  her,  and  my  arm  defend  ; 

I  envied  no  man's  riches  ;  no  man's  power, 
I  asked  of  none  to  give,  of  none  to  lend. 

And  she  the  faithful  partner  of  my  care, 

When  ruddy  evening  streaked  the  western  sky  ; 

Looked  towards  the  uplands  if  her  mate  was  there, 
Or  through  the  beeches  cast  an  anxious  eye." 

One  loves  to  linger  over  the  Ellisland  period,  for  it 
formed  undoubtedly  the  happiest  episode  of  Bums' 
whole  life,  and  who  can  fail  to  regret,  not  only  for 
his  sake,  but  also  for  his  wife's,  that  it  proved  as 
brief  as  it  was  bright  and  happy.  It  endured  for 
only  three  years,  and  during  the  whole  of  that  period 
Burns  is  always  seen  at  his  best.  His  muse  was 
never  more  prodigally  responsive,  and  the  finest 
effusions  that  he  ever  gave  to  the  world  were  con- 
ceived in  his  placid  domestic  haven  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nith.  His  To  Mary  in  Heaven  ;  Tarn  o'  Shanter; 
and  Willie  Brewed  a  Peck  o'  Maut;  form  only  a  small 
part  of  his  poetic  productions  at  this  time.  His 
letters  too  have  a  dignity  of  expression,  and  an 
elevation  and  brilliancy  of  thought  which  indicate 
that  all  was  well  within,  and  the  reason  is  very  easy 
to  divine.  He  was  living  in  the  midst  of  associa- 
tions which  satisfied,  and  satisfied  fully,  every 
aspiration  of  his  soul;  in  his  wife's  affectionate 
society,  and  in  the  playful  prattle  of  his  children,  he 
had,  what  was  to  him,  a  vital  necessity;  in  his 
surroundings  he  had  all  that  he  could  desire  for  the 
indulgence  of  his  poetic  communings  with  nature, 
while  in  the  fellowship  of  intellectual  and  congenial 
friends,  both  in  the  neighborhood  and  from  a  dis- 
tance, he  had  abundant  opportunities  of  indulging 


BONNIE  JEAN.  37 

in  his  natural  predilection  for  convivial  social  inter- 
course. Unfortunately,  however,  owing  to  his  farm 
proving  unprofitable  he  is  compelled  to  revert  to  his 
excise  commission  which  he  had  hitherto  held  in  re- 
vServe.  His  application  to  be  appointed  to  the 
"  Ride  "  in  which  he  resided  was  successful  but  the 
extra  work  this  new  duty  entailed  upon  him  was  a 
terrible  drain  on  his  natural  vigour  and  energy.  His 
excise  division  embraced  a  wide  tract  of  country 
extending  over  ten  parishes,  and  in  one  of  his  letters 
WTitten  in  November,  1790,  he  says:  "I  am  jaded 
to  death  with  fatigue.  For  these  two  or  three 
months,  I  have  not  ridden  less  than  200  miles  on  an 
average  every  week."  Unfortunately,  too,  this 
change  in  Burns'  occupation  entailed  on  him  in- 
cessant and  lengthened  absences  from  home,  and 
from  the  society  of  his  \vife  and  children.  Burns 
must  have  felt  this  deprivation  very  keenly,  for  he 
was  a  man  of  decidedly  domestic  habits  and  tastes, 
and  the  chief  happiness  of  his  life  always  centred  in 
' '  those  endearing  connections  consequent  on  the 
venerable  names  of  husband  and  father." 

The  glimpses  afforded  us  of  Mrs.  Burns,  at  Ellis- 
land,  in  her  new  position  of  wife  and  mother,  are 
disappointingly  few  and  transient,  but  they  all  ex- 
hibit her  as  an  active,  industrious  and  frugal  house- 
wife; a  kind,  liberal  and  considerate  mistress;  a 
devoted  mother  and  an  idolizing  wife.  There  can- 
not be  a  doubt  that  she  literally  worshipped  Burns, 
and  that  in  her  devotion  to  him,  she  actually 
attained  to  that  lofty  ideal,  which  forms  the  funda- 
mental principal  of  truest  loyalty — a  belief  that  '  *  he 
could  do  no  wrong."  As  an  instance  of  this,  refer- 
ence may  here  be  made  to  her  truly  noble  act  of 
wifely  self-abnegation  in  taking  to  her  motherly 
bosom  and  nursing,  as  a  child  of  her  own,  the  in- 


38  BONNIE  JEAN. 

fant  "Betty,"  which  "Anna  wi'  the  gowden  locks," 
had  borne  to  Bums.  The  infant  was  born  only  ten 
days  previous  to  the  birth  of  her  son,  William  Nicol 
Burns,  in  April,  1701,  and  as  its  unfortunate  mother 
died  in  child-birth,  Mrs.  Burns  adopted  the  mother- 
less infant  and  nursed  and  fostered  it,  with  all  a 
mother's  tenderness  and  care,  until  "Betty" 
reached  the  years  of  maturity,  and  became  in  her 
turn,  a  happy  and  devoted  wife  and  mother.  Yet 
so  quietly  and  unassumingly  was  this  act  of  unpar- 
alleled charity  and  generosity  performed  by  Burns' 
noblehearted  wife,  that  few — very  few,  were  ever 
aware  of  the  fact.  Indeed,  Mrs.  Burns'  own  father, 
old  Mr.  Armour,  if  he  ever  knew  of  it  at  all,  was 
ignorant  of  it  at  the  time  he  visited  his  daughter  at 
Ellisland,  shortly  after  the  birth  of  her  child.  On 
that  occasion,  he  went  forward  and  looked  into  the 
cradle,  which  his  daughter  was  rocking,  and  on  see- 
ing two  infants  in  it,  he  said  in  amazement — "  I 
didna  ken  Jean,  that  you  had  twins  again,"  and 
gently  smiling,  she  simply  replied, — "Neither  I 
have  faither,  the  ither  bairn  belongs  to  a  friend,  and 
I'm  takin'  care  of  it." 

No  doubt,  amid  all  the  community  of  feeling  and 
loving  sympathy  and  companionship  which  existed 
between  her  and  her  distinguished  husband,  there 
must  have  been  frequent  occasions,  when  his  moods 
and  thoughts  soared  far  beyond  her  simple,  practical 
ken,  but  on  these  occasions  she  always  had  the  tact 
and  delicacy  to  respect  her  husband's  abstraction, 
and  to  wait  the  result  in  the  truest  spirit  of  conjugal 
love  and  confidence.  We  have  good  evidence  of 
this,  in  her  account  of  the  composition  of  his  im- 
mortal poem.  Tarn  0'  Shanter^  in  the  end  of  the 
autumn  of  1790.  The  poem  was  the  work  of  one 
day,   and  she  well  remembered   the   circumstances. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  39 

Burns  spent  the  most  of  the  day  on  his  favorite  walk 
by  the  river,  where  in  the  afternoon  she  joined  him 
with  her  two  children.  He  was  busily  "  croonin  to 
himsel',"  and  perceiving-  that  her  presence  was  an  in- 
terruption, she  loitered  behind  with  her  little  ones 
among  the  broom.  Her  attention  was  presently 
attracted  by  the  wild  gestures  of  the  Bard,  who,  now 
at  some  distance  was  reciting  aloud  with  tears  of 
laughter  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  some  of  the  ani- 
mated verses  he  had  just  conceived.  Immediately 
afterwards  the  poem  was  committed  to  writing,  on 
the  top  of  a  sod-dyke,  at  the  water  side,  and  when 
Burns  came  into  the  house,  shortly  afterwards,  he 
read  the  verses  in  high  "  triumph  to  his  wife,  at  the 
fireside."  We  have  another  similar  instance  occur- 
ring about  the  same  period,  the  narrative  being  also 
taken  from  Mrs.  Burns'  own  statement.  "Burns 
though  labouring  under  cold,  spent  the  day  in  the 
usual  work  of  the  harvest,  and  apparently  in  excel- 
lent spirits,  but  as  the  twilight  deepened  he  appeared 
to  grow  very  sad,  and  at  length  wandered  out  into 
the  barn-yard,  to  which  his  wife,  in  her  anxiety, 
followed  him,  entreating  him  in  vain  to  observe  that 
frost  had  set  in,  and  to  return  to  the  fireside.  On 
being  again  and  again  urged,  he  promised  com- 
pliance, but  still  remained  where  he  was,  striding  up 
and  down  slowly,  and  contemplating  the  sky,  which 
was  singularly  clear  and  starry.  At  last,  Mrs.  Burns 
found  him  stretched  on  a  heap  of  straw,  with  his 
eyes  fixed  on  a  beautiful  planet,  that  shone  '  like 
another  moon,'  and  pervailed  on  him  to  come  in. 
He  immediately,  on  entering  the  house,  called  for 
his  desk,  and  wrote  exactly  as  it  now  stands,  with  all 
the  ease  of  one  copying  from  memory,  the  sublime 
and  pathetic  l^o  Mary  in  Heaven. 

The  displenishing  sale  at  Ellisland  proved  a  very 


40  BONNIE  JEAN. 

favourable  one,  and  according  to  Mrs.  Burns'  state- 
ment they  entered  on  their  Dumfries  experience  with 
a  substantial  sum  in  hand.  Burns,  besides,  was 
earning  an  annual  salary  of  from  ^70  to  ^^90,  so 
that  they  had  what  in  those  days,  under  Mrs.  Burns' 
careful  and  frugal  management,  might  be  regarded 
as  a  fair  provision  for  their  station  in  life.  The 
dwelling  they  occupied,  when  they  first  came  to 
Dumfries,  was  the  the  second  flat  of  a  house  in  the 
**  Wee  Vennel,"  now  called  Burns  Street,  in  which 
within  the  brief  space  of  five  years,  the  distinguished 
Poet  was  doomed  to  breath  his  last.  This  house 
consisted  of  two  floors,  and  contained — a  kitchen, 
parlor,  and  two  good  bed-rooms,  with  several  lesser 
apartments.  The  change  from  rural  life  at  Ellisland, 
to  town  life  in  Dumfries,  mu.st  have  been  as  un- 
pleasant for  Mrs.  Bums  as  it  was  great,  but  she  was 
endowed  with  that  placidity  of  temper,  and  unvary- 
ing sweetness  of  disposition,  which  enabled  her  at 
times  to  make  the  best  of  even  the  most  unfavorable 
circumstances — **  Cribbed,  cabined  and  confined" 
in  the  little  county  town,  she  no  doubt  thought 
often  and  longingly  of  their  rural  home  at  Ellisland, 
and  the  comparative  freedom  and  comfort  of  their 
life  there,  with  her  household  and  dairy  duties  to  in- 
terest her,  and  sweet  periods  of  relaxation,  as  she 
strolled  with  her  husband  and  children  among  the 
broom  on  the  romantic  banks  of  the  Nith.  These 
retrospections,  however,  did  not  prevent  her  from 
ministering  with  all  her  love  and  devotion  to  the 
comfort  and  well-being  of  her  husband  and  family. 
To  Burns,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  scarcely 
room  to  doubt  that  the  change  of  residence  was  a 
pleasing  and  congenial  one.  He  dearly  loved  the 
companionship  of  his  fellows,  and  the  society  in  and 
around  Dumfries  afforded  him  many  opportunities 


BONNIE  JEAN.  41 

of  gratifying  those  social  tendences,  which  bulked 
so  largely  in  his  disposition.  Much  has  been  said  as 
to  his  excesses  during  his  residence  in  Dumfries,  but 
it  is  now  wxU  understood  that  these  have  been 
greatly  exaggerated,  and  we  know  that  even  at  the 
worst  they  were  never  habitxial  in  their  character, 
nor  did  they  interfere  either  with  his  capabilites  as  a 
business  man,  or  with  the  proper  discharge  of  his 
duty  to  his  family.  On  the  authority  of  an  emphatic 
statement  made  by  Mrs.  Burns  to  her  sister-in-law, 
Mrs.  Begg,  after  the  Poet's  death,  we  learn  that 
during  the  whole  time  of  their  residence  in  Dumfries 
*'  Burns  never  indulged,  unless  when  he  was  in  con- 
genial company,  and  that  although  he  was  often  out 
at  convival  meetings  until  a  late  hour,  he  never  on  a 
single  occasion,  however  late  he  might  be  of  coming 
home,  failed  in  a  custom  he  invariably  observed  be- 
fore coming  to  bed,  of  going  into  the  room  where 
his  children  slept,  and  satisfying  himself  that  they 
were  all  comfortably  tucked  in  and  sleeping 
soundly." 

Burns'  daily  life  in  Dumfries  must  have  been  an 
active  and  busy  one,  for,  besides  his  official  duties, 
he  was  engaged,  down. almost  to  the  very  date  of  his 
death,  in  corresponding  with  Thomson  in  regard  to 
the  collection  of  Scottish  songs,  which  Thomson 
was  then  editing,  and  in  composing  these  matchless 
lyrics  which  have  added  so  much  lustre  and  fascina- 
tion to  our  Scottish  Minstrelsy.  Burns'  favourite 
walk  at  Dumfries  was  towards  the  Martingdon  Ford, 
and  here,  according  to  Mrs.  Burns,  he  composed 
many  of  his  finest  songs ;  and  so  soon  as  she  heard 
him  begin  to  "hum"  to  himself,  she  knew  that  he 
had  something  on  his  mind,  and  she  was  quite  pre- 
pared to  see  him  snatch  up  his  hat,  and  set  silently 
off  for  his  favourite  musing  groimd.     The  calls,  too, 


42  BONNIE  JEAN. 

on  Burns'  leisure  hours  were  many  and  incessant, 
for  besides  associating  continually  with  many 
families  of  position  in  and  around  Dumfries,  his 
company  was  much  in  demand  by  many  strangers  of 
culture  and  eminence,  who  chanced  to  visit  the 
district. 

In  the  management  of  her  domestic  affairs,  and  in 
her  intercourse  with  her  husband's  many  friends  and 
associates,  Mrs.  Burns  continued  to  display,  at 
Dumfries,  the  sam.e  prudence  and  unvarying,  amia- 
bility which  had  characterized  her  at  Ellisland,  and 
six  brief  years  pavssed  over  the  heads  of  the  house- 
hold— six  years  of  much  comfort  and  happiness, 
although  not  unmingled  too  with  trial  and  bereave- 
ment. About  a  year  after  their  removal  from  Ellis- 
land,  Mrs.  Burns  gave  birth  to  a  daughter,  named 
Elizabeth  Riddell,  after  Burns'  fair  friend  Mrs. 
Riddell,  of  Friars  Carse,  and  about  two  years  after- 
wards, she  had  a  son,  called  James  Glencairn  in 
compliment  to  Burns'  noble  patron,  the  Earl  of  that 
name.  About  the  time  of  this  last  mentioned  birth, 
Burns  and  his  wife  had  the  grief  to  notice  that  their 
little  girl  was  beginning  to  pine  away,  and  after  a 
protracted  illness  of  more  than  a  year,  she  died  at 
Mauchline,  where  she  had  been  sent  in  the  hope  of 
her  health  being  improved  by  the  change.  Both  of 
them  were  devotedly  attached  to  their  little  daughter. 
Burns  in  particular  was  bound  up  in  her,  and  one  of 
the  pleasing  revelations  we  have  of  the  Poet,  is  that 
handed  down  to  us  in  the  reminiscences  of  a  native 
of  Dumfries,  who  saw  him  often  ' '  sitting  in  the 
summer  evenings  at  his  door  with  this  little  child  in 
his  arms,  dandling  her,  and  singing  to  her,  and  try- 
ing to  elicit  her  mental  faculties." 

The  death  occurred  in  the  autumn  of  1795,  and 
the  blow  was  intensified  by  the  fact  that  Burns'  own 


BONNIE  JEAN.  43 

health  had  become  so  undermined  that  he  was 
actually  imable  to  go  to  Mauchline  to  see  her  in- 
terred. He  was  now  frequently  laid  aside  by  pro- 
tracted and  severe  illnesses,  and  in  the  following 
year  Mrs.  Burns  had  the  anguish  to  notice  her  dis- 
tinguished husband's  health  becoming  gradually 
more  and  more  shattered.  Every  remedy  which  her 
love  and  devotion  could  suggest  was  tried,  and  at 
times  there  appeared  to  be  some  slight  symptom  of 
improvement,  but  it  proved  to  be  only  temporary  in 
its  character.  For  six  sad  weary  months  this  con- 
tinued, amid  fluctuating  hopefulness  and  disappoint- 
ment, Mrs.  Burns  being  much  assisted  in  soothing 
and  nursing  her  dying  husband,  by  their  amiable 
and  warmly  attached  young  friend  Jessie  Lewars: 

"Sweet  as  the  smile  when  fond  lovers  meet, 
And  soft  as  their  parting  tear." 

As  a  last  resource  Burns  was  induced  in  the  month 
of  July  to  go  to  Brow,  a  hamlet  on  the  Solway  Firth, 
to  try  the  effect  of  sea-bathing,  but  as  Mrs.  Burns 
was  again  approaching  confinement,  she  was  unable 
to  accompany  him.  After  ten  days  spent  at  Brow, 
although  decidedly  benefited  by  the  change,  Burns 
was  seized  by  a  restless  longing  to  return  home.  As 
stated  in  his  own  words — "he  anxiously  wished  to 
return  to  town,  as  he  has  not  heard  any  news  of 
Mrs.  Burns  these  two  days."  He  accordingly  re- 
turned to  Dumfries,  on  Monday,  i8th  July,  and  by 
his  exposure  during  the  long  drive,  an  excess  of 
fever  had  set  in,  and  on  reaching  his  home  he  was 
so  weak  as  to  be  unable  to  stand  upright.  Weak 
and  ill  as  he  was,  he  nevertheless  contrived  to  pen 
the  following  frantic  appeal  addressed  to  his  father- 
in-law,  Mr.  Armour,  an  appeal  which,  sad  to  say, 
formed  the  last  scrap  of  writing  that  was  ever  to 
emanate  from  Burns'  powerful  and  prolific  pen : — 


44  BONNIE  JEAN, 

"Dumfries,  Monday,  i8th  July,  1796. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

Do,  for  Heaven's  sake,  send  Mrs. 
Armour  here  immediately.  My  wife  is  hourly  ex- 
pecting to  be  put  to  bed.  Good  God !  what  a  situa- 
tion for  her  to  be  in,  poor  girl,  without  a  friend!  I 
returned  from  sea-bathing  quarters  to-day,  and  my 
medical  friends  would  almost  persuade  me  that  I  am 
better  but  I  think  and  feel  that  my  strength  is  so 
gone  that  the  disorder  will  prove  fatal  to  me. 

Your  Son-in-law,  R.  B." 

There  is  a  deep,  although  melancholy  satisfaction 
in  thinking  that  this  expiring  effort  of  the  mighty 
genius  was  actuated  by  his  tender  anxiety  for  his 
loving  and  devoted  wife,  and  this  feeling  is  intensi- 
fied when  we  learn  from  Mrs.  Burns'  own  statement 
that  during  his  death  agony,  w^hich  set  in  very 
shortly  after  his  arrival  at  his  own  house,  he  be- 
sought her  to  recall  him  to  himself  by  touching  him 
whenever  she  saw  symtoms  of  his  mind  wandering 
What  an  amount  of  deep,  solemn,  heart  filling  grati- 
fication there  is  in  the  thought  that  the  loving  gentle 
touch  of  "his  Jean  "  was  the  last  sensation  of  which 
the  dying  Poet  carried  with  him  into  the  Realms  of 
Eternity ! 

Burns'  death  occurred  on  the  morning  of  Thursday, 
2ist  July,  1796,  and  the  interment  took  place  on  the 
Monday  following,  and  on  the  same  da}^  his  bereaved 
widow  gave  birth  to  a  son,  Maxwell  Burns,  who  was 
ushered  into  this  world  while  the  bells  of  the 
churches  were  tolling  his  Father's  funeral  knell, 
and  who  survived  his  father  barely  three  years, 

Mrs.  Burns  survived  her  husband  for  fully  thirty- 
eight  years,  and  during  the  whole  of  that  period  she 
continued  to  occupy  the  house  in  which  his  life  had 


BONNIE  JEAN.  45 

so  sadly  and  prematurely  closed.  Her  existence  al- 
though lonely,  was  far  from  being  devoid  of  comfort 
and  happiness.  By  the  generous  liberality  of  many 
of  the  admirers  of  her  husband's  genius,  and  by  the 
proceeds  realized  from  Dr.  Currie's  posthumous 
edition  of  the  Poet's  "Life  and  Works",  her  worldly 
comfort  was  amply  provided  for.  Throughout  her 
lengthened  widowhood,  she  was  regarded  with 
general  and  genuine  respect,  not  only  on  account  of 
her  association  with  the  gifted  Bard,  but  also  on 
account  of  her  own  amiability  of  character:  inherent 
good  taste;  and  unvarying  modesty  of  deportment. 
For  the  memory  of  Burns  she  had  an  intense 
veneration,  and  she  fondly  cherished,  to  the  very 
last,  her  every  reminiscence  of  the  brief  but  happy 
wedded  life  they  had  spent  together.  With  all  the 
loving  tenderness  of  her  single-hearted  nature,  she 
clung  to  the  house  in  which  he  had  lived  and  died, 
and  although  at  the  time  she  became  a  widow  she 
was  still  an  attractive,  and  comparatively  speaking, 
a  young  woman,  she  refused  to  enter  into  a  second 
marriage,  although  she  had  more  than  once  an 
opportunity  of  doing  so,  decidedly  to  her  wordly 
advantage.  She  devoted  herself  to  the  up-bringing 
and  education  of  her  children,  refusing,  firmly  yet 
gratefully,  in  the  hour  of  her  greatest  necessity,  the 
offer  of  a  generous  kinsman  of  her  husband,  to  re- 
lieve her  of  the  maintenance  and  education  of  her 
eldest  boy.  As  an  instance  too  of  her  unselfish 
generosity,  she  refused  to  allow  her  brother-in-law, 
Gilbert  Burns,  to  cast  himself,  and  his  mother  and 
sisters  on  the  world,  by  displenishing  his  farm,  as  he 
proposed  to  do,  in  order  to  pay  up  a  debt  of  ^180 
which  he  owed  to  Robert,  and  which  he  knew  was 
urgently  required  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  his 
brother's   widow    and   children.      Nor   did   her  self- 


46  BONNIE  JEAN. 

sacrificing  devotion  to  her  fatherless  family  go  un- 
rewarded. It  is  true  that  her  son,  Maxwell,  died 
three  years  after  her  husband,  at  the  age  of  three, 
and  four  years  thereafter,  death  also  deprived  her  of 
her  son,  Francis  Wallace,  in  his  fourteenth  year,  but 
her  eldest  son  Robert,  gained  for  himself  a  good 
position  in  the  civil  service,  while  her  other  two  sons, 
William  and  James,  attained  to  distinguished  military 
rank,  and  ultimately  retired  as  Lieutenant-Colonels 
in  the  East  India  Company's  Service.  All  of  them 
survived  their  mother  for  many  years,  but  owing  to 
William  and  James  being  abroad,  Robert,  the  eldest 
son,  was  the  only  one  who  was  privileged  to  witness 
the  closing  scenes  of  their  mother's  life.  We  have 
a  touching  and  pathetic  account  of  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Burns,  furnished  by  her  grand-daughter  Sarah 
Burns,  now  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  residing  in  Cheltenham, 
the  eldest  daughter  of  Colonel  James  Glencairn 
Burns.  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  after  the  death  of  her 
mother,  in  India,  in  182 1,  was  sent  to  this  country 
and  consigned  to  the  care  of  her  grand- mother,  by 
whom  she  was  tenderly  and  affectionately  nutrured, 
until  death  deprived  her  of  her  kind  and  venerable 
guardian,  in  1834.  At  that  time  Sarah  was  a  mere 
child  of  twelve,  but  she  still  retains,  after  a  lapse  of 
more  than  half  a  century,  a  warm  and  fond  recollec- 
tion of  her  grand-mother.  Being  a  day  boarder  at 
a  school  at  Dumfries,  she  saw  little  of  her  except 
for  an  hour  or  two  in  the  evening,  owing  to  Mrs. 
Burns  being  so  disabled  by  paralysis,  as  to  be  un- 
able to  walk  down  stairs  from  her  bed-room.  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  says :  ' '  On  Saturday  afternoons  when  I 
was  home  from  school  she  used  to  give  me  pennies 
to  take  round  to  some  of  her  poor  old  neighbours, 
and  I  remember  the  beggars  who  came  to  the  door 
always   got  meal  to  put  into  their  'pokes.'      I  can 


BONNIE    JEAN.  47 

only  remember  her  kindness  to  me.  I  used  to  read 
a  chapter  to  her  out  of  the  family  Bible,  and  I  can 
vividly  remember  seeing  her,  after  her  last  seizure, 
lying  speechless  with  her  eyes  closed.  After  our 
minister,  Dr.  Wallace  prayed,  she  opened  her  eyes 
and  looked  round  the  room  for  me,  and  as  I  went 
beside  her  the  tears  coursed  down  her  cheeks,  and  I 
think  she  pressed  my  hand,  but  she  never  spoke 
again,"  How  thoroughly  Jean's  tender  womanly 
heart  went  out  towards  the  little  motherless  grand- 
daughter, who  had  been  sent  to  brighten  the  closing 
years  of  her  life,  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  she 
expressly  stipulated  that  her  foster-daughter  "  Betty 
Burns  "  should  name  her  youngest  daughter 
"  Sarah  "  after  this  idol  of  her  old  age.  This  touch- 
ing fact  is  disclosed  in  a  letter,  which  "Betty'* 
wrote  to  her  aunt  Mrs.  Begg,  twelve  years  after  her 
foster-mother's  death,  from  which  we  cannot  refrain 
from  making  the  following  quotation,  as  it  affords 
the  truest  and  most  touching  and  genuine  tribute 
that  was  ever  paid  to  a  good  and  generous  hearted 
woman :  '  *  The  names  cf  the  last  two  children, 
[Sarah  Burns  and  James  Burns],  were  all  that  Mrs. 
Burns  exacted  from  me  as  an  acknowledgement  of 
her  unwearied  kindness  to  me.  God  was  kind  to 
her,  my  dear  aunt,  in  giving  her  plenty  but  she  did 
not  hide  it  under  a  hedge :  she  willingly  shared  it 
with  the  poor  and  needy.  The  last  letter  I  had 
from  her  was  in  July  1833,  with  £^2  in  it  to  buy  a 
frock  for  my  youngest  child,  then  about  a  month 
old.  The  more  I  contemplate  that  excellent 
woman's  character,  the  more  I  admire  it.  There 
w^as  something  good  and  charitable  about  her,  sur- 
passing all  women  I  ever  yet  met  with.  She  was 
indeed  a  true  friend,  and  the  best  of  mothers  to  me, 
and  I  was  often  ready  to  think  that  all  friendship  for 


48  BONNIE  JEAN, 

me  in  the  family  had  gone  with  her,  but  I  am  glad 
to  find  it  otherwise." 

Mrs.  Burns'  death  took  place  on  Wednesday,  26th 
March,  1834,  shortly  before  midnight.  She  was 
then  in  the  70th  year  of  her  age,  and  of  this  length- 
ened period,  she  had  spent  not  less  than  forty-four 
years  in  the  town  of  Dumfries.  As  illustrating  the 
pleasing  memories  she  left  behind  her  there,  we  ex- 
tract the  following  passages  from  a  chaste  tribute  to 
her,  which  appeared  in  the  Dumfries  Courier^  of  Ap- 
ril 2,  1834,  and  which  emanated  from  the  pen  of  the 
late  Mr.  M'Diarmind,  an  intimate  personal  friend  of 
Mrs.  Burns,  during  the  later  period  of  her  life : 

"For  more  than  30  years,  she  was  visited  by  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  persons,  from  the  peer,  down 
to  the  itinerant  sonneteer — the  latter,  a  class  of  per- 
sons to  whom  she  never  refused  an  audience  or  dis- 
missed unrewarded.  Occasionally  during  the  sum- 
mer months,  she  was  a  good  deal  annoyed,  but  she 
bore  all  in  patience,  and  although  naturally  fond  of 
quiet,  seemed  to  consider  her  house  as  open  to  vis- 
itors, and  its  mistress,  in  some  degree,  the  property 
of  the  public;  but  the  attentions  of  strangers  neither 
turned  her  head,  nor  were  ever  alluded  to  in  the 
spirit  of  boasting,  *  *  *  sh 

"  Hers,  in  short,  was  one  of  those  well  balanced 
minds,  that,  cling  instinctively  to  propriety,  and  a 
medium  in  all  things.  Such  as  knew  the  deceased 
earliest  and  latest,  were  unconscious  of  any  change 
in  her  demeanour  and  habits,  except  perhaps,  greater 
attention  to  dress  and  more  refinement  in  manner, 
insensibly  acquired  by  frequent  intercourse  with 
families  of  the  first  respectability.  In  her  tastes, 
she  was  frugal  and  simple,  and  delighted  in  music, 
pictures  and  flowers.  In  spring  and  summer,  it  was 
impossible  to  pass  her  windows,  without  being  struck 


BONNIE  JEAN.  49 

by  the  beauty  of  the  floral  treasures  they  contained, 
and  if  extravagant  in  any  way,  it  was  in  the  article 
of  roots  and  plants  of  the  finest  sorts.  Fond  of  the 
society  of  young  people,  she  mixed  as  long  as  able 
in  their  innocent  pleasures,  and  cheerfully  filled  for 
them  "the  cup  which  cheers,  but  not  inebriates." 
Although  neither  a  sentimentalist,  nor  a  blue  stock- 
ing, she  was  a  clever  woman,  possessed  of  great 
shrewdness,  discriminating  character  admirably, 
and  frequently  made  very  pithy  remarks,  *  * 
*  *  *  When  young,  she  must  have 

been  a  handsome,  comely  woman,  if  not  indeed  a 
beauty,  and  up  to  middle  life,  her  jet  black  eyes, 
were  clear  and  sparkling.  Her  carriage  was  easy, 
and  her  step  light.  In  ballad  poetry  her  taste  was 
good,  and  range  of  reading  rather  extensive.  Her 
memory  too  was  strong,  and  she  could  quote,  when 
she  chose,  at  considerable  length  and  with  great 
aptitude.  Of  these  powers,  the  bard  was  so  well 
aware  that  he  read  to  her  almost  every  piece  he 
composed,  and  was  not  ashamed  to  own  that  he  had 
profited  by  her  judgement." 


50  BONNIE  JEAN. 

BONNIE  JEAN 


Hunter  MacCulloch. 
Author  of  "Robert  Burns;  A  Centenary  Ode." 


(Air  :    Afton  Water.) 
When  Scotia's  ain  song-bird,  in  life's  leesome  spring, 
Flew  'round  the  braw  birdies  on  bold,  dashing  wing, 
An'  whissled  sae  sweetly  wi'  sic  winsome  art. 
They  lookit  an'  listened  an'  tint  was  each  heart. 
There  were    Peggies   an'    Nannies   an'   Tibbies   an' 

Nell, 
Wha  ower  Rab  the  Ranter  in  turn  cast  a  spell  ; 
Till  the  lowe  o'  true  love,  lit  by  sparklin'  black  een, 
Bleezed  up  in  his  heart  for  his  ae  Bonnie  Jean ! 

The  stone-mason's  lass  was  for  lovin'  designed, 
Sae  han'some  her  features,  sae  wholesome  her  mind; 
In  sweet-tempered  Jean,  wi'  her  kintra-bred  life, 
Scotia's  ain  darling  bard  fand  his  guid-willie  wife. 
An'  weel  for  our  Robin  'twas  Jean  that  he  wed, 
Whase  treasures  were  mair   o'   the   heart   than   the 

head. 
She  lo'ed  an'  f orgie'd  him  frae  dawin  till  e'en ; 
Nae  bird  o'  them  a'  could  hae  matched  Bonnie  Jean! 

As  his  ain  dearest  jo,  Bonnie  Jean  was  his  choice; 
She  charmed  wi'  her  figure,  her  face  an'  her  voice. 
As  a  wife  o'  his  ain,  weel  deserved  she  his  rhyme, 
Fu'  worthy  the  happiest  made  ''fireside  clime." 
She  teaches  her  fatherless  bairns,  as  she  mourns, 
To  revere  Scotia's  chiefest  o'  bards,  Robert  Burns ; 
Whase    memory  she   cherished  till   death   closed 

her  een; 
Faithfu'   maid,    wife  an'   widow,    all   praise  ! 

Bonnie  Jean  ! 


BONNIE   JEAN.  51 

BONNIE  JEAN  IN  EDINBURGH. 


By  Archibald  Munro. 


Reprinted  from  The  Scotsman,  January  23,  1894. 

There  have  been  many  Bonnie  Jeans,  and  it  as 
safe  to  predict  as  it  is  pleasant  to  foresee  that  there 
will  be  many  more ;  but  there  is  only  one  on  whom 
fortune  has  bestowed  special  distinction.  All  the 
others  must  be  content  to  occupy  a  position  subor- 
dinate to  that  of  the  one  to  whom  the  poetic  genius 
of  Robert  Burns  has  procured  a  conspicuous  niche  in 
the  Temple  of  Fame.  A  few  general  remarks  on 
this  celebrated  heroine,  and  especially  a  brief  ac- 
count of  her  visit  to  Edinburgh,  may  not,  perhaps, 
be  out  of  place  at  a  time  when  the  minds  of  many 
people  are  being  engaged  with  thoughts  about  an 
occasion  when  "a  blast  o'  Januar'  win'  blew  hansel 
in  on  Robin." 

Though  unhappily  unacquainted  with  the  advan- 
tages of  the  education  which  the  enlightened  con- 
science of  the  nation  had  provided  for  even  the 
humblest  ranks  of  the  people,  this  excellent  woman 
divined  from  attentive  observation  the  benefits  it 
confers  on  its  fortunate  possessors.  No  one  was 
more  anxious,  therefore,  to  encourage  a  proposal  to 
offer  her  eldest  son  a  course  of  studies  at  a  grammar 
school,  and  even  at  a  university,  notwithstanding 
her  husband's  satirical  opinion  of  folk  who  enter 
college  classes.  Great  was  her  satisfaction  on  hear- 
ing now  and  then  from  Robert  Secundus  accounts 
of  his  two  years'  experience  at  the  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity, as  well  as  of  his  interviews  with  the  nota- 
bilities who  fraternised  with  his  father  in  other  days. 

Brought  up  in  the  atmosphere   of   a   district   that 


52  BONNIE  JEAN 

produced  the  worthies  immortalized  in  the  "Cottar's 
Saturday  Night,"  and  nurtured  under  the  roof  of  a 
parent  whose  practice  of  the  code  of  morality  was 
never  disputed,  Mrs.  Burns  was  thoroughly  con- 
versant with  the  ideas  and  duties  that  appertain  to 
the  highest  interests  of  humanity.  To  her  family, 
and  to  her  husband  also,  she  set  an  example  of  piety 
by  the  observance  of  those  sacred  ordinances  that 
have  given  the  Scottish  peasantry  an  enviable  no- 
toriety among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  During  her 
long  widowhood  of  thirty-eight  years  she  had  the 
sole  charge  of  the  up-bringing  of  her  sons  in  the 
way  in  which  they  should  go,  and  right  royally  did 
she  face  and  discharge  the  responsibilities  of  her  ex- 
acting position.  The  late  Rev.  Dr.  Begg,  who  in 
early  youth  was  pastor  of  one  of  the  Dumfries  par- 
ish churches,  had  Mrs.  Burns  for  one  of  his  hearers, 
and  he  used  to  dwell  with  great  complacency  on  the 
regularity  of  her  attendance  on  his  ministrations, 
and  on  the  fortunate  coincidence  that  led  to  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  wife  of  one  whom,  in  my  own 
hearing,  he  placed,  in  regard  to  greatness,  above 
all  other  Scotsmen,  not  excepting  Bruce,  Knox, 
Scott,  or  even  Chalmers.  Dr.  Begg  humorously  re- 
lated that  while,  in  the  course  of  his  pastoral  visits 
to  the  widow's  house,  he  was  more  eager  to  hear  her 
talk  about  her  great  husband  than  to  discharge  the 
duty  of  the  visiting  pastor,  she  was  prone  to  reverse 
the  order  of  things,  and  to  confine  the  ecclesiastic  to 
his  properly  official  track.  While  he  wanted  remin- 
iscences of  Burns,  his  douce  parishioner  was  fain  to 
crack  about  the  Kirk.  On  the  termination  of  the 
young  preacher's  connection  with  his  Dumfries  con- 
gregation no  member  of  his  flock  tendered  a  more 
feeling  regret  than  the  shrewd  and  warm-hearted 
relict  of  Robert  Burns. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  53 

During  her  prolonged  widowhood,  Mrs.  Burns 
continued  to  occupy  the  comparatively  humble,  but 
much  frequented,  house  in  which  she  had  passed 
little  more  than  a  couple  of  the  years  of  her  married 
life.  Pleased  with  her  home,  herself,  and  all  the 
world  besides  she  ne'er  had  changed  nor  wished  to 
change  her  place,  though  often  solicited  by  friends 
and  relations  at  distance  to  enliven  the  monotony  of 
her  way  of  life  by  excursions  hither  and  thither,  or 
by  a  while's  residence  among  them.  Strange,  to 
say,  however,  the  lonely  matron,  when  far  advanced 
in  years,  yielded  to  the  solicitations  of  friends  to 
whom  she  was  allied  by  no  tie  of  blood.  Some  folk 
in  Edinburgh,  who  had  proved  her  most  generous 
friends  in  the  hour  of  her  utmost  need,  expressed  a 
wish  that  the  consort  of  the  boon  companion  who 
during  his  even  brief  sojourn  among  them  had  given 
their  social  life  an  interest  unfelt  before,  and  who,  if 
it  be  true,  as  Walt  Whitman  opines,  that  the  great- 
est city  is  that  where  the  greatest  man  is  found, 
made  Edinburgh  the  capital  of  the  country  in  a  new 
sense,  would  enrich  its  associations  by  her  presence 
among  them.  Entreaties  from  such  a  quarter  and 
from  such  petitioners  overbore  Bonnie  Jean's  re- 
luctance to  leave  the  Queen  of  the  South  even  for  a 
day.  Jean's  visit  to  Edinburgh  ought  to  be  of  con- 
siderable interest  to  all  the  readers  of  her  husband's 
biography,  all  the  more  so,  perhaps,  that  its  particu- 
lars form  no  part  of  her  recorded  history.  In  the 
course  of  her  journey  towards  the  metropolis  she 
had  to  pass  a  day  or  two  at  Mauchline,  where  she 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  some  of  her  own  and 
her  husband's  now  famous  companions  and  acquaint- 
ances. James  Humphreys,  the  noisy  polemic  of 
the  village,  rival  of  Burns  himself  in  point  of  re- 
partee, and  the  subject  of  possibly  the  severest  epi- 


54  BONNIE  JEAN. 

gram  the  poet  ever  put  on  paper;  and  John  Lees, 
Burns'  blackfoot  at  the  Castle  of  Montgomery  on 
the  occasion  of  his  visits  to  Highland  Mary,  and 
other  cronies  of  scarcely  less  note  in  the  poet's 
annals,  waited  on  the  illustrious  visitor,  and  reviewed 
with  her  the  characteristic  scenes  of  many  a  social 
hour.  All  the  Mauchline  belles,  of  whom  Jean 
herself  was,  as  has  been  mentioned,  the  favourite  of 
her  husband's  muse,  were  still  in  life,  and,  indeed, 
lived  to  a  good  old  age — three  of  them  being  alive  in 
the  year  1851,  a  longevity  which  those  who  seek  for 
causes  to  effects  may  be  inclined  to  ascribe  to  the 
good  humor  infused  into  its  possessors  by  the 
sprightly  poetical  compliments  paid  to  them  during 
their  teens.  Several  of  these  "belles'*  were  visited 
by  the  quondam  Miss  Armour  as  she  proceeded  to 
Edinburgh,  and  exchanged  reminiscences  with  her 
of  the  happy  era  when  they  sat  for  the  portraits 
which  a  master  hand  made  of  them  respectively. 
To  very  few  outsiders,  however,  were  the  interest- 
ing pilgrim's  arrival  and  departure  at  and  from  the 
different  localities  through  which  she  passed  made 
known.  This  circumstance  was  in  quite  accordance 
with  her  own  urgent  request.  This  pre-arrangement 
was,  as  may  be  readily  conjectured,  a  sore  disappoint- 
ment to  many  an  admirer  of  her  celebrated  spouse. 
Mrs.  Burns'  arrival  in  Edinburgh  was  soon  made 
known  to  those  family  circles  in  which  Burns  may 
be  vSaid  to  have  for  several  months  lived,  moved,  and 
had  his  being.  Mr.  George  Thomson,  who  had 
been  the  means  of  waking  to  new  exertions  the  dor- 
mant muse  of  the  national  bard,  and  who  had 
received,  through  correspondence,  the  first  copies  of 
those  lyric  gems  on  which  the  reputation  of  the 
author  as  a  song  writer  chiefly  rests,  resided  at  the 
time  of  Mrs.  Burns'  visit  in  a  tenement  in  the  High 


BONNIE  JEAN.  55 

Street,  adjoining-  the  Exchange  Square,  and  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  a  room  where  Hugh  Miller 
did  editorial  work  for  The  Witness.  The  spot  is 
therefore,  as  well  as  for  more  ancient  considerations, 
time-honoured,  and  even  classical.  Mr.  Thomson 
was  among  the  most  eager  of  the  Edinburgh  friends 
to  see  Bonnie  Jean  among  them,  and  he  coupled  his 
request  of  a  visit  from  her  with  a  wish  that  she 
would  make  his  house  her  home  for  the  time  being. 
With  infinite  delight  the  visitor  was  received  by  her 
host  and  family,  the  host  pathetically  declaring, 
after  the  preliminary  greeting,  that  the  greatest 
regret  of  his  life  was  that  circumstances  stood  in  the 
way  of  his  arranged  meeting  with  her  husband.  Mr. 
Thomson  frequently  repeated  the  expression  of  this 
feeling  in  the  course  of  his  interviews  with  more 
recent  relatives  of  the  poet.  One  of  the  Mauchline 
belles,  described  by  Burns  as  "  Miss  Smith,  she  has 
wit,"  in  his  lines  on  these  heroines,  was  then  resident 
in  Nicolson  Street,  and  was  soon  advised  of  the 
arrival  of  her  fellow  celebrity.  At  a  later  period 
this  lady  lived  in  South  Charlotte  Street,  in  the 
house  of  her  distinguished  son,  the  late  Principal 
Candlish,  and  was,  even  in  advanced  life,  as  lively, 
cheerful,  and  witty  as  ever.  In  the  year  1846  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  this 
great  favorite  of  Burns,  and  drew  from  her  society 
a  new,  and  I  hope  instructive,  interest  in  the  peerle'ss 
productions  of  her  felicitous  eulogist.  Mrs.  Candlish, 
who  lost  no  time  in  calling  on  the  companion  of  her 
girlhood,  told  her  much  of  her  own  experience  since 
1785,  when  they  were  the  toasts  respectively  of 
Robert  Burns  and  James  Candlish,  and  by  her 
general  knowledge  and  proverbial  gifts,  mightily  in- 
terested Jean  with  her  racy  remarks  on  folk  and 
fashions  in  Auld   Reekie.     Clarinda,  too,  the  poet's 


56  BONNIE  JEAN. 

sometime  goddess  of  the  Potterrow,  called  and  en- 
chanted her  adorer's  widow  with  her  well-known 
fund  of  lore  and  charming  powers  of  gossip  to  such 
an  extent  that  Bonnie  Jean,  by  nature  free  from  all 
taint  of  envy  or  jealousy,  became  as  much  impressed 
by  her  worth  and  sensibility  as  ever  the  impression- 
able poet  himself  had  been,  and  facetiously  pro- 
nounced herself  fortunate  in  possessing  charms  that 
in  the  end  triumphed  over  those  of  her  talented  and 
pretty  rival.  How  happy  Robin  was  with  either 
when  t'  other  was  away !  Other  friends  who  had 
visited  Mrs.  Burns  in  her  home  at  Dumfries,  and 
still  more  who  had  not,  came  trooping  to  Mr. 
Thomson's  house  to  pay  their  respects,  but  did  not 
content  themselves  with  leaving  their  cards.  There 
were  daily  levees  of  such  friends  as  had  known  her 
husband,  or  had  interested  themselves  at  his  death, 
in  behalf  of  his  widow  and  his  little  boys.  Mr. 
Robert  Ainslie,  W.  S.,  the  poet's  companion  during 
his  romantic  excursions  to  the  Border  Counties,  and 
the  witness  of  interesting  revelations  of  his  char- 
acter, tender,  douce,  or  gay;  Dawnie  Douglas,  of 
the  Anchor  Hotel,  a  howff  which  stood  where  the 
Scotsman  Office  now  stands,  and  where  the 
Crochallan  Club  was  instituted,  and,  more  note- 
worthy still,  where  Burns  and  his  Edinburgh  chums 
had  many  a  merry  splore — these  and  other  associ- 
ates of  the  poet  did  themselves  the  honour  of  wel- 
coming Bonnie  Jean  to  "Scotia's  darling  seat."  A 
meeting  between  Mr.  Walter  Scott  and  Mrs  Burns, 
which,  however,  did  not  take  place  at  Mr.  Thomson's 
house,  was,  probably,  the  one  which  all  the  students 
of  whatever  is  brillant  and  permanent  in  the  poetry 
and  history  of  Scotland,  must  consider  as  the  most 
interesting  episode  in  Mrs.  Burns'  visit  to  the  Great 
Wizard's    "own   romantic  town."      The   matchless 


BONNIE  JEAN.  57 

novelist,  who,  when  a  boy,  met  Burns  in  Sheens 
House  in  circumstances  which  have  engaged  the 
pens  of  poets,  and  have  lately  occupied  the  thoughts 
and  skill  of  one  of  our  rising  young  painters,  ex- 
tended to  Bonnie  Jean  a  hand  trembling  all  over 
with  the  emotions  of  tender  memories.  The  inter- 
view was  a  protracted  and  affectionate  one,  the 
characteristics  of  the  one  friend  most  impressively 
affecting  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  other.  Un- 
fortunately for  the  interests  of  historical  literature, 
Mrs.  Burns'  excessive  modesty  prevented  her  from 
letting  the  world  know  that  part  of  the  Wizard's 
remarks  that  related  to  the  elder  and  more  gifted 
son  of  the  muse. 

The  catalogue  of  visitors  would  have  been  very 
incomplete  indeed  if  it  omitted  the  name  of  Mr. 
Alexander  Cunningham,  W.  S.,  as  generous  a  bene- 
factor as  ever  relieved  or  cheered  a  bereaved  family. 
This  gentleman's  worth  and  liberality  has  been  re- 
flected in  fadeless  characters  in  letters  written  to 
him  by  Burns.  Almost  the  last  letter  the  trembl- 
ing hand  of  the  dying  poet  penned  was  written  to 
this,  his  best  Edinburgh  friend,  and  it  ought  to  be 
a  source  of  immingled  gratification  to  all  sticklers 
for  the  fitness  of  things  that  the  grandson  of  the 
Writer  to  the  Signet,  who  bears  his  surname,  has 
possession  of  the  precious  documents,  and  that  very 
tempting  offers  have  failed  to  induce  him  to  part 
with  them.     They  are,  in  truth,  above  price. 

To  what  extent  Mrs.  Burns  and  her  orphan  family 
were  indebted  to  Mr.  Cunningham's  zeal  and  mtmi- 
ficence  she  and  many  others  were  well  aware,  and 
her  grateful  feelings  found  expression  in  the  gift  of 
probably  the  costliest  relic  of  her  immortal  husband. 
A  punchbowl  of  fine  stone,  made  and  presented  by 
her  father  to  the  poet  at  the  time  of  their  happy  re- 


58  BONNIE  JEAN. 

conciliation,  was  an  article  the  daughter  of  the  one 
and  the  wife  of  the  other  thought  would  be  accept- 
able to  the  congenial  associate  of  her  husband.  The 
punchbowl  in  after  days  fetched  300  guineas  at  a 
sale,  and  was,  like  Scotland's  coronation  stone, 
packed  off  to  London  to  enrich  the  British  Museum. 
Extravagant  or  at  least  sensational  offers  for  the  re- 
purchase and  recall  of  the  precious  memorial  have 
not  succeeded  in  restoring  it  to  the  Cunningham 
family.  Had  Mrs.  Burns  received  no  other  kindness 
in  Edinburgh  beyond  what  she  received  at  the 
residence  of  Mr.  Cunningham,  she  was  ready  to  de- 
clare that  her  husband  had  better  friends  than  she 
gave  him  credit  for,  or  than  he  even  deserved. 

Small  parties  were  now  and  th-en  formed  in  Mr. 
Thomson's  house  in  honor  of  his  guest.  To  these 
social  gatherings  scarcely  any  but  the  lovers  of  music 
and  song  were  invited.  Mr.  Thomson,  who  was 
fellow-labourer  with  Burns  in  the  composition  of 
the  work  on  Scottish  melodies,  w^as  an  accomplished 
violinist,  and  had  taken  his  share  in  the  entertain- 
ment of  his  company  by  discoursing  excellent  music 
on  that  instrument,  with  which  he  had  been  wont  to 
charm  the  musical  reunions  of  Cecilia's  Hall  at  the 
foot  of  Niddry  Street  in  the  days  of  Schetki,  Corelli, 
and  Giornovichi,  the  Paganini  of  the  period.  The 
attention  and  hospitality  of  her  host  overcame  any 
hesitation  Mrs.  Burns  might  have  to  exhibit  her 
musical  gifts  in  high  Edinburgh  society.  Though 
the  range  of  her  gamut  was  not  equal  to  what  it  had 
been,  nor  the  tone  so  sympathetic  as  when  her  en- 
raptured husband  was  the  happiest  of  her  audience, 
the  romance  of  the  occasion  supplied  what  was 
awanting  to  the  vocal  spell.  Some,  indeed,  declared 
that  her  acceptance  as  a  singer  needed  no  extrinsic 
consideration  to  commend  it.     Those  sones  that  had 


BONNIE  JEAN.  59 

been  inspired  by  herself,  and  which  after  some 
gentle  pressure  vShe  consented  to  sing,  were  listened 
to  with  an  interest  that  could  never  again  be  revived 
in  Edinburgh. 

With  all  Mr.  Thomson's  admiration  and  study  of 
the  magnificent  foreign  musical  compositions  that 
were  slowly  working  their  way  to  British  favour,  he 
had  a  laudable  predilection  for  Scottish  lyrics,  and 
no  less  a  fancy  for  dance  music.  This  was  more  in 
Jean's  way.  As  a  variation  in  the  evening's  enjoy- 
ments, a  strathspey  and  reel  occasionally  followed 
the  abstract  attractions  of  choral  harmonies.  The 
younger  members  of  the  company  generally  mon- 
opolised the  dancing  accommodation  of  Mr.  Thom- 
son's limited  apartments,  and  tripped  it  merrily  to 
his  cheery  strains.  Bonnie  Jean,  who  seems  to  have 
been  considered  by  all  present  too  matronly  to  care 
for  the  fantastic  mazes  of  her  girlhood,  was  allowed 
to  look  on  as  a  passive,  perhaps  a  reluctant,  specta- 
tor. At  the  close  of  a  rattling  reel  one  of  the  per- 
spiring gymnasts  advanced  to  Jean's  chair,  and 
jocularly  remarked — "I  suppose  Mrs.  Burns  your 
dancing  days  are  over?"  "More  than  you  seem  to 
think  so,"  roguishly  responded  the  prima  donna  of 
old  Mauchline  penny  reel  days.  "I  have  not  seen 
you  on  the  floor,"  gasped  the  embarrassed  joker. 
"That's  no  fault  of  mine,"  replied  the  dame  of 
nearly  threescore  summers.  "  Do  you  mean  to  say 
you  would  try  a  spring,  Mrs.  Burns?"  "Ay,  a 
dozen  of  them,  gin  I  got  the  chance."  Judge  of 
the  surprise  and  the  delight  of  the  company,  includ- 
ing the  fiddler  and  his  wife,  when  they  saw  the  ven- 
erable belle  in  her  celebrated  role  stand  up  beside 
an  ecstatic  partner.  Bonnie  Jean's  feet  had  lost 
none  of  their  cunning.  She  set,  she  decked,  and 
whirled  about  with  a  grace  and  agility  that  would 


6o  BONNIE  JEAN. 

have  added  new  laurels  to  the  fame  of  the  beldame, 
whose  gyrations  in  Auld  Alloway  Kirk  enriched  the 
een  of  Tam  o'  vShanter.  Of  com'se,  every  gallant 
present  claimed  Jean  as  his  partner  in  the  next 
dance.  So  thoroughly^  did  the  veteran  danseuse 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  tlie  moment,  and  compel  her 
fellow-dancers  to  bestir  themselves,  that  not  a  few 
of  them  were  right  happy  when  the  fiddler  drew  the 
last  run  of  his  bow.  Bonnie  Jean  sat  down  smiling, 
and  gaily  hinted  that  she  was  ready  to  play  a  similar 
part  in  every  subsequent  night  of  her  stay  in  her 
host's  abode. 

A  visit  to  the  theatre  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Thom- 
son, and  cheerfully  accepted  by  his  light-hearted 
guest.  At  that  time  the  theatre — the  only  one  in 
the  city — included  in  its  orchestra  a  Mr.  Eraser,  who 
had  acquired  high  reputation  as  a  performer  on  the 
hautboy.  As  Eraser  had  played  in  the  same  house 
in  the  presence  of  Robert  Burns  himself  some  of 
the  melodies  that  are  married  to  his  immortal  verse, 
Mr.  Thomson  intimated  to  the  popular  musician 
that  the  widow  of  the  poet  v/as  going  to  honour  the 
playhouse  with  her  patronage,  and  that  it  would  be 
an  appropriate  compliment  to  her  if  on  the  occasion 
he  would  render  one  or  more  of  those  melodies  that 
had  delighted  her  husband  in  a  former  century. 
Eraser  required  no  further  suggestion ;  he  was  but 
too  willing  to  honour  himself  by  granting  the  favor 
asked.  The  air  played  was  that  of  Burns'  song, 
"  Eee  him,  father,  fee  him,"  which  as  rendered  by 
Eraser,  in  opposition  to  the  popular  interpretation  of 
its  sentiment,  was  not  of  a  sprightly  cast,  but  the 
echo  of  deep  despair.  The  performer  had  been 
accustomed  to  treat  the  habitues  of  the  theatre  to 
this  air,  especially  on  his  benefit  nights;  but  as  a 
special  interest  attached  to  the  present  occasion,  he 


BONNIE  JEAN.  6i 

played  with,  if  possible,  more  care  and  discrimina- 
tion than  ever.  His  pathetic  notes  drew  tears  from 
many  eyes,  even  from  those  not  usually  given  to  the 
melting  mood.  To  many  individuals  it  appeared 
as  if  the  performer  brought  Jean  into  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  spirit  of  her  loving  husband.  It 
need  hardly  be  added  that  she  herself  seemed  to 
have  been  of  the  same  opinion. 

To  Jean  this  pathetic  song  was  charged  with 
touching  memories,  of  which  neither  Mr.  Fraser 
nor  any  one  of  the  crowded  audience  that  listened  to 
him  had  at  that  time  any  knowledge.  Even  Mr. 
Thomson  was  ignorant  of  their  existence.  The 
readers  of  the  biographies  of  Burns  may  recollect 
that  at  a  very  dark  period  of  the  author's  relation  to 
Jean  and  her  family  he  offered  to  become  a  toiler  in 
her  father's  service,  and  remain  in  it  till  he  discharged 
certain  responsibilities  supposed  to  be  resting  upon 
him.  The  song  was,  therefore,  fitted,  probably  in- 
tended, to  express  the  daughter's  anxiety  that  her 
father  should  "fee"  her  lover  in  order,  of  course, 
that  she  might  have  more  frequent  opportunities  of 
seeing  him. 

A  round  of  other  and  various  entertainments 
gladdened  the  heart  of  the  stranger  during  her 
limited  stay  in  the  capital.  On  the  eve  of  her  with- 
drawal from  Edinburgh,  Mrs.  Burns  was  honoured 
by  her  old  and  new  friends  with  demonstrations  of 
esteem  and  affection  which  even  a  Queen  might  con- 
sider herself  fortunate  in  receiving  from  loyal  and 
devoted  subjects.  On  her  return  to  Dumfries  the 
much-longed-for  lady  was  cordially  welcomed  back 
by  all  who  knew  her.  Prominent  among  those  who 
yearned  for  her  return  was  Mrs,  James  Thomson, 
the  Jessy  Lewars  of  earlier  days,  and  the  subject  of 
that  imperishable   beauty  of   verse  and  song,    '  *  O, 


62  BONNIE  JEAN. 

wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast,"  the  jointi  nspira- 
tion  of  Burns  and  Mendelssohn.  To  Mrs.  Thomson 
there  was  sent  by  the  hands  of  Mrs.  Burns  a  mes- 
sage of  esteem  and  gratitude  from,  among  other 
friends.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  which  might  be  regarded 
as  a  precious  prelude  to  a  more  popular  compliment 
paid  to  her  on  a  later  day.  Some  of  us  who  took  a 
part  in  the  famous  Burns  Festival  held  at  Ayr  in 
1844  may  remember  the  tumultous  and  prolonged 
applause  that  followed  the  mention  by  the  Earl  of 
Edinburgh  in  the  banqueting  pavilion  near  Alloway 
Kirk,  of  the  services  rendered  by  this  the  patient 
and  devoted  nurse  of  Burns  during  his  last  illness. 
On  her  return  home,  therefore,  Mrs.  Burns  received 
from  Mrs.  Thomson  more  than  a  common  welcome. 
Jean  delighted  to  narrate,  and  Jessy  delighted  to 
hear  of,  the  affectionate  regard  in  which  the  deceased 
husband  and  friend  was  held  in  high  quarters  in  the 
metropolis  and  elsewhere. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  63 

"OF  A'  THE  AIRTS." 


By  The  Rev.   Arthur  John  Lockhart. 


Author  of  "  The  Masque  of  Minstrels,'"  etc. 

There's  a  blur  on  the  face  of  the  late  March  moon 

The  wind  pipes  shrill,  and  the  chimneys  croon ; 

Over  our  cottage  it  searching  flies, 

And  every  crack  and  cranny  it  tries ; 

From  its  w^restling  might  the  elm  springs  free, 

And  it  wings  a  wail  from  the  willow  tree. 

But  the  wind  of  March,  as  I  sit  by  the  fire. 

Plays  through  the  heart's  aeolian  lyre, 

And  to  my  listening  spirit  brings 

The  past  and  the  future  on  its  wings ; — 

The  seer  can  see,  and  the  singer  sing. 

When  the  wild  March  evening  pipes  of  spring. 

Then,  as  the  firelight  darts  up  clear,     . 

And  I  see  the  guidwife  sitting  near, 

A  sweet  auld  song  through  my  mind  will  go, — 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blow;" 

And  the  sweet  home  face,  that  is  smiling  seen. 

Minds  me  right  gaily  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

Rave,  ye  wild  blast,  and  thou  bright  fire,  glow! 

' '  Of  all  the  airts  the  wind  can  blow, 

I  dearly  lo'e  the  wind  o'  the  west 

For  there  lives  the  lassie  that  I  lo'e  best:" 

The  heart  that  sings  it  throbs  and  yearns 

With  some  of  the  passion  of  Robert  Burns. 


64  BONNIE  JEAN. 

When  the  daisy  blows,  and  the  thrush  appears, 
One  face  comes  peering  across  the  years ; 
'Tis  the  face  of  him  who  toiled  and  sung, 
When  Jean  was  absent,  and  love  was  young, — 
' '  I  see  her  in  the  flowers  sae  fair, 
I  hear  her  voice  as  it  charms  the  air." 


Ah,  fancy  quikens !     I  see  him  stand 

Alone  in  the  field  at  Ellisland ; 

And  all  around  him  on  every  side. 

The  birds  are  singing  at  Whitsuntide ; 

But,  though  woods  are  green,  and  skies  are  gay, 

There's  a  look  in  his  eyes  that  is  far  away. 

Then,  in  blissful  dreaming,  he  moves  along, 
And  he  utters  his  heart  in  a  joyous  song: 
'*  Wi'  her  in  the  west  the  wild  woods  grow; 
The  laverocks  sing,  and  the  rivers  row ; 
And.  though  there's  mony  a  hill  between, 
Ever  my  fancy  is  wi'  my  Jean. 

'*  The  winds  may  blow — the  winds  may  blow — 

Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blow 

The  west  is  ever  the  dearest  to  me. 

Till  I  my  lassie  again  may  see ; 

Greener  the  leaves,  and  the  skies  more  sheen,. 

That  hover  over  my  Bonnie  Jean." 

She  came,  ere  the  winter,  to  ben  an'  byre ; 
She  lit  on  the  hearth  her  lover's  fire ; 
Her  smiles  were  like  sunshine  upon  the  walls ; 
Her  words  dropt  sweet  as  the  streamlet-falls ; 
The  lassie  of  song  was  his  wedded  wife. 
The  heart  he  longed  for  was  his  for  life. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  65 

O  fortunate  season,  and  hopeful  time, 
When  the  poet  prospered  in  love  and  rhyme ! 
When,  sowing  or  reaping,  the  day  went  by, 
And  he  ploughed  his  fields,  and  tented  his  kye. 
And,  he  deemed,  while  the  children  played  near  his 

door. 
That  peace  had  come  to  depart  no  more. 

O  westlin'  winds,  full  softly  blow! 
Ye  bring  content  with  your  bloom  or  snow ; 
No  more  the  poet's  heart  may  roam 
From  fireside  glow  of  his  own  calm  home : 
Would  that,  indeed,  it  had  been  so ; — 
Ye  westlin'  winds,  full  softly  blow ! 

Ah,  faithful  Jean !  there  were  other  years ! 

For  her  were  sorrows,  for  her  were  tears : 

But  the  pansy  weathers  the  wintry  rime ; 

And  she  kept,  as  she  might,  her  **  fireside  clime." 

She  lifted  her  burden, — her  heart  was  stout, 

And  the  lamp  of  her  love,  it  never  went  out. 

Ah,  wayward  brother,  and  poet  wild ! 

With  the  shifting  fancy  of  petted  child, 

And  passionate  spirit  through  dark  eyes  seen, — 

Thou  well  might'st  cherish  and  prize  thy  Jean ! 

Some  fleeting  favors  the  few  might  shed ; 

She  loved  thee  living,  and  mourned  thee  dead. 

What  lyric  queens  in  thy  heart  might  reign, 
Bemoaned  with  passion  and  tender  pain : 
She  of  the  blind  and  the  hopeless  love ; 
And  Mary,  the  sainted  in  Heaven  above : — 
Weeping,  we  sing  of  the  rose-lip  paled. 
And  the  eyes  soft  glances  so  darkly  veiled. 


66  BONNIE  JEAN, 

But  one  there  was, — to  her  memory  peace! 
With  thee  she  lieth  in  gray  Dumfries ; — 
Hers  were  thy  sorrows,  successes,  joys ; 
She  cuddled  thy  lassies  and  reared  thy  boys ; 
She  dropped  o'er  thy  grave  her  quick  hot  tears, 
And  gave  to  thy  memory  her  widowed  years. 

So  when  assemble  the  gay  and  young, 
And  songs  of  the  Scottish  land  are  sung, 
And  before  the  dreamer's  raptured  eye 
The  fair  procession  goes  gliding  by. 
Not  one  of  the  haunted  troop  is  seen 
Dearer  and  truer  than  Bonnie  Jean. 

Stately  in  splendor,  and  radiant  in  light, 
They  thrill  the  ear,  and  they  charm  the  sight ; 
They  answer  the  music's  melting  call, — 
But  one  is  the  jewel  among  them  all : 
Warmest,  most  human  and  gentle,  appears 
The  patient  woman  who  blessed  his  years. 

And  so,  to-night,  in  my  warm  home-nest. 

While  the  shrill  March  wind  blows  out  of  the  west, 

The  auld  sang  hums  through  my  musing  brain, 

Till  I  utter  allowed  the  tender  strain, — 

And  the  guid  wife  sings  by  the  firesides  glow — 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blow." 


BONNIE  JEAN.  67 

BURNS'  BONNIE  jEAN. 


From  Mrs.  Jameson's  ^^  Loves  of  the  Poets,''''  {1844). 


It  was  as  Burns's  wife  as  well  as  his  early  love, 
that  Bonnie  Jean  lives  immortalized  in  her  poet's 
songs,  and  that  her  name  is  destined  to  float  in  music 
from  pole  to  pole.  When  they  first  met,  Burns  was 
about  six-and-twenty,  and  Jean  Armour  "but  a 
young  thing," 

Wi'  iempting  lips  and  roguish  een, 

the  pride,  the  beauty,  and  the  favourite  toast  of  the 
village  of  Mauchline,  where  her  father  lived.  To 
an  early  period  of  their  attachment,  or  to  the  fond 
recollection  of  it  in  after  times,  we  owe  some  of 
Burns's  most  beautiful  and  impassioned  song, — as 

Come,  let  me  take  thee  to  this  breast, 
And  pledge  we  ne'er  shall  sunder  ! 

And  I'll  spurn  as  vilest  dust 
The  world's  wealth  and  grandeur,  &c. 

"O  poortith  cold  and  restless  love;"  '*  The  kind  love 
that's  in  her  e'e;"  "Lewis,  what  reck  I  by  thee;" 
and  many  others.  I  conjecture,  from  a  passage  in 
one  of  Burns's  letters,  that  Bonnie  Jean  also  fur- 
nished the  heroine  and  the  subject  of  that  admirable 
song,  "  O  whistle,  and  I'll  come  to  thee,  my  lad,"  so 
full  of  buoyant  spirits  and  artless  affection:  it 
appears  that  she  wished  to  have  her  name  introduced 
into  it,  and  that  he  afterwards  altered  the  fourth 
line  of  the  first  verse  to  please  her : — thus. 

Thy  Jeanie  will  venture  wi'  ye,  my  lad  ; 

but    this  amendment  has  been  rejected  by   singers 


68  BONNIE  JEAN. 

and  editors,  as  injuring  the  musical  accentuation: 
the  anecdote,  however,  and  the  introduction  of  the 
name,  give  an  additional  interest  and  a  truth  to  the 
sentiment,  for  which  I  could  be  content  to  sacrifice 
the  beauty  of  a  single  line,  and  methinks  Jeanie  had 
a  right  to  dictate  in  this  instance.  *  With  regard  to 
her  personal  attractions,  Jean  was  at  this  time  a 
blooming  girl,  animated  with  health,  affection,  and 
gaiety :  the  perfect  symmetry  of  her  slender  figure ; 
her  light  step  in  the  dance;  the  '*  waist  sae  jimp," 
"the  foot  sae  sma',"  were  no  fancied  beauties: — 
she  had  a  delightful  voice,  and  sung  with  much  taste 
and  enthusiasm  the  ballads  of  her  native  country; 
among  which  we  may  imagine  that  the  songs  of  her 
lover  were  not  forgotten.  The  consequences,  how- 
ever, of  all  this  dancing,  singing,  and  loving  were 
not  quite  so  poetical  as  they  were  embarrassing. 

O  wha  could  prudence  think  upon, 

And  sic  a  lassie  by  him  ? 
O  wha  could  prudence  think  upon, 

And  sae  in  love  as  I  am  ? 

Burns  had  long  been  distinguished  in  his  rustic 
neighborhood  for  his  talents,  for  his  social  qualities 
and  his  conquests  among  the  maidens  of  his  own 
rank.  His  personal  appearance  is  thus  described 
from  memory  by  Sir  Walter  Scott: — "  His  form  was 
strong  and  robust,  his  manner  rustic,  not  clownish ; 
with  a  sort  of  dignified  simplicity,  which  received 
part  of  its  effect,  perhaps,  from  one's  knowledge  of 
his  extraordinary  talents;  *  *  *  his  eye  alone,  I 
think,  indicated  the  poetical  character  and  tempera- 
ment;   it    was   large,    and  of    a   dark   cast,    which 

*  "  A  Dame  whom  the  graces  have  attired  in  witchcraft,  and  whom 
the  loves  have  armed  with  lightning— a  fair  one — herself  the  heroine  of 
the  song  insists  on  the  amendment — and  dispute  her  commands  if  you 
dare."— Burns'  Letters. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  69 

glowed,  (I  say  literally,  glowed)  when  he  spoke  with 
feeling  and  interest .  His  address  to  females  was 
extremely  deferential,  and  always  with  a  turn  either 
to  the  pathetic  or  humorous,  which  engaged  their 
attention  particularly.  I  have  heard  the  late 
Duchess  of  Gordon  remark  this;"  and  Allan  Cun- 
ningham, speaking  also  from  recollection,  says,  "he 
had  a  very  manly  countenance,  and  a  very  dark 
complexion;  his  habitual  expression  was  intensely 
melancholy,  but  at  the  presence  of  those  he  loved 
or  esteemed,  his  whole  face  beamed  with  affection 
and  genius ;"  ***  * '  his  voice  was  very  musical ;  and 
he  excelled  in  dancing,  and  all  athletic  sports  which 
required  strength  and  agility." 

It  is  surprising  that  powers  of  fascination  which 
carried  a  Duchess  "off  her  feet,"  should  conquer 
the  heart  of  a  country  lass  of  low  degree?  Bonnie 
Jean  was  too  softhearted,  or  her  lover  too  irresistible ; 
and  though  Bums  stepped  forward  to  repair  their 
transgression  by  a  written  acknowledgement  of 
marriage,  which,  in  Scotland,  is  sufficient  to  consti- 
tute a  legal  union,  still  his  circumstances,  and  his 
character  as  a  "wild  lad,"  were  such,  that  nothing 
could  appease  her  father's  indignation;  and  poor 
Jean,  when  humbled  and  weakened  by  the  conse- 
quences of  her  fault  and  her  sense  of  shame,  was 
prevailed  on  to  destroy  the  document  of  her  lover's 
fidelity  to  his  vows,  and  to  reject  him. 

Burns  was  nearly  heart-broken  by  this  dereliction, 
and  between  grief  and  rage  was  driven  to  the  verge 
of  insanity  His  first  thought  was  to  fly  the  country ; 
the  only  alternative  which  presented  itself,  ' '  was 
Jamaica  or  a  jail ;"  and  such  were  the  circumstances 
under  which  he  wrote  his  "  Lament,"  which,  though 
not  composed  in  his  native  dialect,  is  poured  forth 


70  BONNIE  JEAN. 

with   all  that  energy  and  pathos  which   only  truth 
could  impart. 

No  idly  feigned  poetic  pains, 

My  sad,  love  lorn  lamenting  claim  ; 
No  shepherd's  pipe — Arcadian  strains, 

No  fabled  tortures,  quaint  and  tame  : 
The  plighted  faith — the  mutual  flame — 

The  oft-attested  powers  above — 
The  promised  father's  tender  name — 

These  were  the  pledges  of  my  love  ! 

This  was  about  1786:  two  years  afterwards,  when 
the  publication  of  his  poems  had  given  him  name 
and  fame,  Burns  revisited  the  scenes  which  his 
Jeanie  had  endeared  to  him:  thus  he  sings  exult- 
ingly,— 

I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town 
And  by  yon  garden-green,  again  : 

I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town, 
And  see  my  Bonnie  Jean  again  ! 

They  met  in  secret;  a  reconciliation  took  place; 
and  the  consequences  were  that  Bonnie  Jean,  being 
again  exposed  to  the  indignation  of  her  family,  was 
literally  turned  out  of  her  father's  home.  When 
the  news  reached  Burns  he  was  lying  ill ;  he  was 
lame  from  the  consequences  of  an  accident, — the 
moment  he  could  stir,  he  flew  to  her,  went  through 
the  ceremony  of  marriage  with  her  m  presence 
of  competent  witnesses,  and  few  months  afterwards 
he  brought  her  to  his  new  farm  at  Ellisland,  estab- 
lished her  under  his  roof  as  his  wife,  and  the 
honoured  mother  of  his  children. 

It  was  during  this  second-hand  honeymoon, 
happier  and  more  endeared  than  many  have  proved 
in  their  first  gloss,  that  Burns  wrote  several  of  the 
sweetest  effusions  ever  inspired  by  his  Jean;  even  in 


BONNIE  JEAN.  71 

the  days  of  their  early  wooing,  and  when  their  in- 
tercourse had  all  the  difficulty,  all  the  romance,  all 
the  mystery,  a  poetical  lover  could  desire.  Thus 
practically  controverting  his  own  opinion,  "that 
conjugal  love  does  not  make  such  a  figure  in  poesy 
as  that  other  love,"  &c. — for  instance,  we  have  that 
most  beautiful  song,  composed  when  he  left  his 
Jean  at  Ayr  (in  the  west  of  Scotland,)  and  had  gone 
to  prepare  for  her  at  Ellisland,  near  Dumfries. 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw, 

I  dearly  like  the  west, 
For  there  the  bonnie  lassie  lives, 

The  lassie  I  lo'e  best : 
There  wild  woods  grow,  and  rivers  row, 

And  monie  a  hill  between  ; 
But  day  and  night  my  fancy's  flight 

Is  ever  wi'  my  Jean. 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and  fair  : 
I  hear  her  in  the  tunefu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air  : 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green  ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings, 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean." 

Nothing  can  be  more  lovely  than  the  luxuriant, 
though  rural  imagery,  the  tone  of  placid  but  deep 
tenderness,  which  pervades  this  sweet  song ;  and  to 
feel  all  its  harmony,  it  is  not  necessary  to  sing  it — 
it  is  music  in  itself.  In  November,  1778,  Mrs. 
Burns  took  up  her  residence  at  Ellisland,  and  en- 
tered on  her  duties  as  a  wife  and  mistress  of  a 
family,  and  her  husband  welcomed  her  to  her  home 
("her  ain  rooi-tree,")  with  the  lively,  energetic,  but 
rather  unquotable  song,  "I  hae  a  wife  o'  my  ain;" 
and  subsequently  he  wrote  for  her,  "O  were  I  on 
Parnassus  Ilills,"  and  that  delightful  little  bit  of 
simple  feeling — 


72  BONNIE  JEAN. 

She  is  a  winsome  wee  thing, 
She  is  a  handsome  wee  thing, 
She  is  a  bonnie  wee  thing. 

This  sweet  wee  wife  of  mine. 
I  never  saw  a  fairer, 
I  never  lo'ed  a  dearer, — 
And  next  my  heart  1*11  wear  her, 

For  fear  my  jewel  tine  ! 

and  one  of  the  finest  of  all  his  ballads,  '*  Their 
groves  o'  Sweet  myrtle,"  which  not  only  presents  a 
most  exquisite  rural  picture  to  the  fancy,  but 
breathes  the  very  soul  of  chastened  and  conjugal 
tenderness. 

I  remember,  as  a  particular  instance — I  suppose 
there  are  thousands — of  the  tenacity  with  which 
Burns  seizes  on  the  memory,  and  twines  round  the 
very  fibres  of  one's  heart,  that  when  I  was  traveling 
in  Italy,  along  that  beautiful  declivity  above  the 
river  Clitumnus,  languidly  enjoying  the  balmy  air, 
and  gazing  with  no  careless  eye  on  those  scenes  of 
rich  and  classical  beauty  over  which  memory  and 
fancy  had  shed 

A  light,  a  glory,  a  fair  luminous  cloud 
Enveloping  the  earth  ; 

even  then,  by  some  strange  association,  a  feeling  of 
my  childish  years  came  over  me,  and  all  the  livelong 
day  I  was  singing,  sotto  voice — 

There's  groves  o'  sweet  myrtle  let  foreign  lands  reckon, 

Where  bright-beaming  summers  exalt  the  perfume  ; 
Far  dearer  to  me  yon  lone  glen  o'  gran  bracken, 

Wi'  the  burn  stealing  under  the  long  yellow  broom  ! 
Far  dearer  to  me  are  yon  humble  broom  bowers, 

Where  the  blue-bell  and  go  wan  lurk  lowly  unseen, 
For  there,  lightly  tripping  among  the  wild  flowers, 

A'  listening  the  linnet,  oft  wanders  my  Jean. 

Thus  the  heath,  and  the  blue-bell,  and  the  gowan, 


BONNIE   JEAN.  73 

had  superseded  the  orange  and  the  myrtle  on  those 
Elysian  plains, 

Where  the  crush'd  weed  sends  forth  a  rich  perfume. 

And  Burns  and  Bonnie  Jean  were  in  my  heart  and 
on  my  lips,  on  the  spot  where  Virgil  had  sung,  and 
Fabius  and  Hannibal  met. 

Besides  celebrating  her  in  verse.  Burns  has  left  us 
a  description  of  his  Bonnie  Jean  in  prose.  He 
writes  (some  months  after  his  marriage)  to  his  friend 
Miss  Chalmers, — "  If  I  have  not  got  polite  tattle, 
modish  manners,  and  fashionable  dress,  I  am  not 
sickened  and  disgusted  with  the  multiform  course  of 
boarding-school  affectation ;  and  I  have  got  the  hand- 
some figure,  the  sweetest  temper,  the  soundest  con- 
stitution, and  the  kindest  heart  in  the  country.  Mrs. 
Burns  believes,  as  firmly  as  her  creed,  that  I  am 
le  plus  bel  esprit,  et  le  plus  honnete  homme  in  the 
universe;  although  she  scarcely  ever  in  her  life,  (ex- 
cept reading  the  Scriptures  and  the  Psalms  of  David 
in  metre)  spent  five  minutes  together  on  either  prose 
or  verse,  I  must  except  also  a  certain  late  publica- 
tion of  Scots  Poems,  which  she  has  perused  very 
devoutly,  and  all  the  ballads  in  the  country,  as  she 
has  (O'  the  partial  lover!  you  will  say)  the  finest 
woodnote  wild  I  ever  heard." 

After  this,  what  becomes  of  the  insinuation  that 
Burns  made  an  unhappy  marriage, — that  he  was 
"  compelled  to  invest  her  with  the  control  of  his  life, 
whom  he  seems  at  first  to  have  selected  only  for  the 
gratification  of  a  temporary  inclination ;"  and  "that 
to  this  circumstance  most  of  his  misconduct  is  to  be 
attributed?"  Yet  this,  I  believe,  is  a  prevalent  im- 
pression. Those  whose  hearts  have  glowed,  and 
whose  eyes  have  filled  with  delicious  tears  over  the 
songs  of  Burns,  have  reason  to  be  grateful  to  Mr. 


74  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Lockhart,  and  to  a  kindred  spirit,  Allan  Cunning- 
ham, for  the  generous  feeling  with  which  they  have 
vindicated  Bums  and  his  Jean.  Such  aspersions 
are  not  only  injurious  to  the  dead  and  cruel  to  the 
living,  but  they  do  incalculable  mischief : — they  are 
food  for  the  flippant  scoffer  at  all  that  makes  the 
"poetry  of  life."  They  imsettle  in  gentler  bosoms 
all  faith  in  love,  in  truth,  in  goodness — (alas,  such 
disbelief  comes  soon  enough !)  they  chill  and  revolt 
the  heart,  and  ' '  take  the  rose  from  the  fair  forehead 
of  an  innocent  love  to  set  a  blister  there." 

"That  Burns,"  says  Lockhart,  "ever  sank  into  a 
toper,  that  his  social  propensities  ever  interfered 
with  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  office,  or  that, 
in  spite  of  some  transitory  follies,  he  ever  ceased  to 
be  a  most  affectionate  husband, — all  these  charges 
have  been  insinuated,  and  they  are  all  false.  His 
aberrations  of  all  kinds  were  occasional,  not  system- 
atic ;  they  were  the  aberrations  of  a  man  whose 
moral  sense  was  never  deadened — of  one  who  en- 
countered more  temptations  from  without  and  from 
within,  than  the  immense  majority  of  mankind,  far 
from  having  to  contend  against,  are  even  able  to 
imagine,"  and  who  died  in  his  thirty-sixth  year, 
* '  ere  he  had  reached  that  term  of  life  up  to  which 
passions  of  many  have  proved  too  strong  for  the 
control  of  reason,  though  their  mortal  career  being 
regarded  as  a  whole,  they  are  honoured  as  among 
the  most  virtuous  of  mankind." 

We  are  told  also  of  ' '  the  conjugal  and  maternal 
tenderness,  the  prudence  and  the  unwearied  for- 
bearance of  his  Jean,"  and  that  she  had  much  need 
of  forbearance  is  not  denied ;  but  he  ever  found  in 
her  affectionate  arms,  pardon  and  peace,  and  a 
sweetness  that  only  made  the  source  of  his  Gccasi(,n  il 
delinquencies  sting  the  deeper. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  75 

She  still  survives  (1844)  to  hear  her  name,  her 
early  love,  and  her  youthftil  charms,  warbled  in 
the  songs  of  her  native  land.  He,  on  whom  she  be- 
stowed her  beauty  and  her  maiden  truth,  dying,  has 
left  to  her  the  mantle  of  his  fame.  What  though  she 
be  now  a  grandmother?  to  the  fancy,  she  can  never 
grow  old,  or  die.  We  can  never  bring  her  before 
our  thoughts  but  as  the  lovely,  graceful  country 
girl,  "lightly  tripping  among  the  wild  flowers,"  and 
warbling,  "Of  a'  the  airts  the  win'  can  blaw," — and 
this,  O  women,  is  what  genius  can  do  for  you! 
Wherever  the  adventurous  spirit  of  her  countrymen 
transport  them,  from  the  spicy  groves  of  India  to 
the  wild  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  the  name  of 
Bonnie  Jean  is  heard,  bringing  back  to  the  wanderer 
sweet  visions  of  home,  and  of  days  of  "  auld  lang 
syne."  The  peasant-girl  sings  it  "at  the  ewe  milk- 
ing," and  the  high-born  fair  breathes  it  to  her  harp 
and  her  piano.  As  long  as  love  and  song  shall  sur- 
vive, even  those  who  have  learned  to  appreciate  the 
splendid  dramatic  music  of  Germany  and  Italy,  who 
can  thrill  with  rapture  when  Pasta, 

Queen  and  enchantress  of  the  world  of  sound, 
Pours  forth  her  soul  in  song  ; 

or  when  Sontag, 

Carves  out  her  dainty  voice  as  readily 
Into  a  thousand  sweet  distinguished  tones, 

even  them  shall  still  have  a  soul  for  the  ' '  Banks  and 
Braes  o'  Bonnie  Doon,"  still  keep  a  corner  of  their 
hearts  for  truth  and  nature — and  Burns's  Bonnie 
Jean. 


76  BONNIE  JEAN. 

FAITHFUL  JEAN. 


By  the  Rev.  Arthur  John  Lockhart. 


As  one,  who  doth  the  skyey  realm  survey, — 
Who  hails,  in  radiant  constancy,  afar 
O'er  night's  blue-tower,  the  sailor-guiding  star,— 
Is  gladdened  by  Selen's  silver  ray, 
Ris'n  o'er  her  hill  upon  some  rippling  bay ; 
So  he,  whose  poet-eyes  were  wandering  still 

Where  maiden  charms  his  fiery  soul  would  fill 
With  passion  to  inspire  his  living  lay, — 
To  carol  love  of  Mary, — musing  song 
Of  perfect  sorrow  o'er  her  early  tomb, — 
To  chant  the  Ballochmyle  at  dewy  e'en, — 
Maria's  call  the  twilight  woods  among, — 

Jessy  and  Nannie,  in  their  sweetest  bloom, — 
Found  cheer  in  the  bright  face  of  Bonnie  Jean. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  77 

THE  WIFE  OF  BURNS. 


By  Alan  Scott. 


When  in  wintry  January  the  birthday  of  Robert 
Burns  comes  round,  and  the  hearts  of  all  true  Scots- 
men turn  in  pride  to  their  greatest  poet,  my  heart 
always  chivalrously  inclines  to  his  wife.  What  a 
clever  woman  she  must  have  been  to  have  filled  so 
well  the  position  of  wife  to  the  greatest  genius  of 
her  time !  The  wife  of  another  great  genius  of  later 
days  has  given  us  clearly  to  understand  the  difficulty 
of  such  a  lot.  Unlike  her,  Bonnie  Jean  never 
realised  the  greatness  of  her  task  and  therefore  did 
not  seek  to  magnify  her  office.  That  she  managed 
beautifully  for  all  that  is  undoubted. 

Whac  a  dainty  picture  she  makes,  the  soft,  sonsy 
little  woman,  wholesome  and  sweet  as  her  own  pats 
of  golden  butter!  Not  a  single  harsh  line  is  there 
in  her  aspect ;  all  is  toned  with  kindly  feeling.  The 
round,  comely  face  is  kept  youthful  by  good  humor, 
the  eye  is  ever  ready  to  dart  its  pawky  glance  at  the 
saucy  joke  of  a  friend,  and  the  plump  little  hand  to 
welcome  the  stranger  with  a  cantiness  becoming  the 
mistress  of  Ellisland.  What  music  there  is  in  her 
voice  too — suggestions  of  all  the  sweet  song  of  a 
long  summer  day,  from  the  blythe  lilt  of  the  hay- 
makers to  the  soft  crooning  of  the  milkmaids  when 
the  kye  come  hame  in  the  gloaming !  Her  laugh — 
the  echo  of  the  gigantic  laughter  of  the  shrewd, 
keen-witted  farmers  of  old  Coila — is  fresh  and  vigor- 
ous as  the  breezes  that  blow  o'er  the  moorlands  of 
Ayrshire.  But  her  dearest  charm  is  her  domestic 
manner.     As  you  watch  her  trotting  but  and  ben  be- 


78  BONNIE  JEAN. 

tween  pantry  and  dairy  and  kitchen,  keeping  the 
cradle  rocking  with  a  touch  of  her  foot  as  she  passes 
to  and  fro,  you  are  reminded  of  departed  generations 
of  notable  housewives — women  who  rose  morning 
after  morning  *'wi'  the  skreigh  o'  day,"  whose  am- 
bition it  was  to  have  the  best  butter  in  the  market, 
who  spent  their  days  in  milking  and  churning  to 
that  end,  and  their  evenings  in  spinning,  or,  as 
George  Eliot  quaintly  says,  ' '  laying  up  linen  for  the 
life  to  come."  Old-fashioned,  cheery,  plump  little 
woman !  I  can  imagine  no  more  suitable  wife  for  a 
poet,  she  being  no  poetess — rather  a  poem  in  herself. 

But  did  she  quite  understand  her  man  of  genius? 
Perhaps  not.  Perhaps  she  never  read  the  full  mean- 
ing of  his  glorious  eyes.  Perhaps  to  the  very  last 
he  was  only  the  wittiest  man  in  the  parish,  quicker 
with  tongue  and  pen  than  either  minister  or  school- 
master, and  with  a  wonderful  knack  of  making 
rhymes.  Certainly  she  never  thought  him  too  glori- 
ous to  be  scolded  when  he  came  home  late  on  market 
days,  or  coaxed  out  of  a  moody  fit  with  a  blythe 
song.  Still,  he  always  held  the  first  place  in  her 
heart  as  the  lover  of  her  youth,  and  was  more  to 
her  than  she  was  to  him. 

And  did  Robert  Burns  miss  anything  in  his  Bonnie 
Jean?  Did  he  ever  wish  for  a  fuller  sympathy  in 
the  wife  of  his  choice?  Very  likely  he  did.  Most 
men  hanker  after  what  they  cannot  get.  Even  the 
chivalrous  Ivanhoe  sighed  for  the  dark  eyes  of  Re- 
becca while  he  gazed  into  the  blue  ones  of  Rowena. 
But,  unlike  many  men,  our  poet  was  too  kind-hearted 
and  delicate  to  let  his  wife  feel  aught  of  this.  Be- 
sides, if  he  ever  gave  himself  up  to  a  contemplation 
of  the  woman  he  might  have  married  he  would  have 
risen  consoled  not  regretful.  He  might,  for  instance, 
have  married  a  sweet,  angelic  woman  who,  instead 


BONNIE  JEAN.  79 

of  scolding  him,  would  have  pined  away  into  grief 
when  brought  in  contact  with  the  -  failings  of  his 
human  nature.  He  might  have  been  united  to  one 
of  your  angular  women,  and  had  his  peace  wrecked 
against  the  principles,  proprieties,  and  peculiarities 
of  her  three-cornered  character.  He  might  have 
wedded  a  tragedy-queen  like  Clarinda,  from  whose 
high  sentiment  he  might  have  lived,  like  a  man  in  a 
balloon,  in  constant  danger  of  an  explosion.  And, 
worst  of  all,  he  might  have  had  an  intellectual  wife, 
who  would  have  worn  herself  out  in  worshipping  and 
mocking  him  alternately,  as  the  different  phases  of 
his  many-sided  character  presented  themselves  to 
her  view,  and  who,  to  a  dead  certainty,  would  have 
written  a  diary !  As  for  us  who,  among  his  admirers, 
think  regretfully  of  Highland  Mary,  let  us  remem- 
ber that  from  all  accounts  she  was  of  the  angelic 
type,  and  therefore  more  fitted  to  be  his  guardian 
angel  in  Heaven,  while  Jean  was  undoubtedly  more 
capable  of  looking  after  his  temporal  interests  on 
earth.  Yes !  there  is  much  to  sadden  us  in  the  life 
of  Robert  Burns,  but  this  one  comfort  remains;  he 
married  a  healthy  cheery,  active  woman — a  daughter, 
as  he  was  a  son,  of  the  people.  She  did  not  spoil 
his  life,  and  I  daresay  he  did  not  spoil  hers,  though 
I  cannot  think  he  would  be  altogether  an  exemplary 
husband,  seeing  he  had  not  the  privilege  of  reading 
the  enlightened  literature,  which  is  addressed  to  the 
young  married  men  now-a-days.  I  can  even  im- 
agine his  Bonnie  Jean  being  a  little  disappointed  in 
him — for  all  of  us  life  is  something  less  than  we  ex- 
pect— but  I  cannot  think  he  would  ever  be  hard  with 
her.  He  was  too  conscious  of  his  failings  to  take 
note  of  other  people's.  (From  perfect  men,  good 
Lord,  deliver  us!)  And  he  did  wake  up  to  her 
charms  sometimes,  else  we  should  have  missed  some 
of  our  loveliest  lyrics. 


8o  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Women  are  said  to  be  like  flowers.  They  are  rare 
flowers  that  bloom  in  wondrous  beauty,  and  are  a 
continual  source  of  pleasure  and  gratification  to 
their  admirers.  And  there  are  in  old-fashioned 
gardens  uninteresting  herbs  that  you  would  pass  by 
if  it  were  not  for  the  faint  fragrance  they  exhale. 
Ah!  these  are  the  flowers  that  have  memories. 
There  is  rosemary,  that's  for  remembrance.  You 
pluck  it  and  lay  it  aside  for  ever  so  long,  away  from 
the  light.  But  when  you  take  it  out  and  press  it  the 
sweet  fragrance  greets  you  once  more,  and  you  are 
reminded  of  the  old-fashioned  garden  and  the  sun- 
shine and  light.  Women  are  like  flowers,  they  have 
different  charms.  There  are  two  women  I  cannot 
help  associating  in  my  mind — the  wife  of  Carlyle 
and  the  wife  of  Burns.  Carlyle's  wife  was  a  woman 
of  rare  attainments,  admired  by  many  of  the  gifted 
men  of  her  time,  the  great  glory  and  pride  of  the 
most  gifted  of  all.  This  lesser  Jeanie  of  ours  was 
scarcely  heard  of  while  she  made  home  for  the 
great  Poet  of  the  People ;  but  now,  after  long  years, 
you  have  only  to  mention  her  name  and  you  will  re- 
call the  music  of  many  of  Scotland's  sweetest  songs. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  8i 

BONNIE  JEAN   IN  HER  OLD  AGE. 


Mr.  James  Mackenzie  tells  in  a  recent  number  of 
the  Scots'  Magazine^  that  his  father,  who  was  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Royal  Scottish  Academy, 
painted  Bums'  ''Bonnie  Jean"  when  nearing  her 
70th  year.  "  He  found  her  to  be  a  woman  of  much 
originality,  and  of  rare  open-heartedness  and  benev- 
olence. And  yet  he  thought  it  likely  enough  that 
Burns  may  have  been  captivated  more  by  her  per- 
sonal than  her  mental  attractions;  because  it  was 
evident  that  she  must  have  been,  if  not  beautiful, 
certain  very  comely  of  feature,  and  her  form  must 
have  been  superb.  Her  figure  was  admirable,  even 
in  old  age. 


82  BONNIE  JEAN. 

HOW    HEW    AINSLIE    KISSED   JEAN 
ARMOUR. 


By  Thomas  C.  Latto. 


Before  Ainslie  left  for  America,  he  had  a  great 
desire  to  pay  what  he  called  his  "devours"  to 
Mistress  Jean  Armour.  On  arriving  at  Dumfries, 
he  visited  Burns's  grave,  and  then  sought  Mrs. 
Burns's  humble  cottage.  After  a  pleasant  '*  twa- 
handed  crack,"  they  walked  together  to  Lincluden 
Abbey,  and  Mrs.  Burns  paused  on  a  sheltered  and 
lovely  spot.  "It  was  just  here,"  she  said,  "that 
my  man  often  paused,  and  I  believe  made  up  many 
a  poem  an'  sang  ere  he  cam'  in  to  write  it  down. 
He  was  never  fractious — aye  good-natured  and  kind 
baith  to  the  bairns  and  to  me."  On  parting,  Ainslie 
said  to  her,  "I  wad  like  weel  ere  I  gae,  if  ye  wad 
permit  me,  to  kiss  the  cheek  o'  Burns's  faithful  Jean, 
to  be  a  reminder  to  me  o'  this  meeting  when  I  am 
far  awa'."  She  laughed,  and  holding  up  her  face  to 
him,  said,  "Aye,  lad,  an' welcome. "  So  she  and 
Burns's  fervent  disciple  parted,  he  to  America,  in  his 
own  words,  "  to  seek  for  themselves  and  friends  a 
resting-place  in  the  young  world  of  the  West,  where 
those  seeds  of  freedom  and  independence  that  '  the 
voice  of  Coila '  had  sown  in  their  souls  might  flourish 
and  bloom,  unstinted  by  the  poisonous  pruning  of 
despots  or  the  deadly  mildew  of  corruption." 

"  Noo,  Jeanie,  that  we've  daunert  by 
Scenes  dear  to  him  an'  you,  lass, 

A  sudden  thoclit  starts  in  my  head — 
Na !  frae  the  heart,  I  trow,  lass. 


BONNIE   JEAN.  83 

O,  micht  I  daur,  ere  pairt  for  aye, 

Frae  ane  I'm  thirl'd  to  lo'e,  lass, 
Bear  ower  the  sea  a  memory, 

Kiss  o'  thy  bonnie  mou',  lass? 

"Where  one  great  Muse,  'mang  cushie-doos 

Once  roam'd,  love  ditties  broodin*, 
We've  wander'd  in  the  wavin'  wuds 

That  scourge  thy  wa's,  Lincluden ; 
Yet  let  a  laddie,  wha  has  left 

His  Bourocks  o'  Bargeny, 
Tak'  sic  a  precious  boon,  for  ance, 

And  only  ance,  dear  Jeanie." 

The  dear  old  dame,  nae  thocht  o'  shame, 

In  her  saft  e'e  a  twinkle, 
Held  up  her  snappy  lips,  untouched 

By  ae  unseemly  wrinkle ; 
"  Oo  aye,"  she  said,  "  an'  welcome,  lad, 

It's  a'  that  I  can  gie  thee. 
But  gin  it  do  thee  ony  guide. 

My  man,  then  tak'  it  wi'  thee." 


84  BONNIE  JEAN. 

MRS.  BURNS, 


From  Cunningham's  '''■Life  and  Land  of  Bums,'' ^  {^84^-) 


"There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs, 
By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green, — 

There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings, 
But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean. 


When  Bishop  Percy  lamented  that  there  were  few- 
songs  in  our  language  expressing  the  joys  of  wedded 
love,  Burns  was  a  lad  some  two  and  twenty  years 
old;  but  though  his  life  was  brief,  he  lived  long 
enough  to  hinder  Percy's  remark  from  continuing 
proverbial,  and  gladdened  our  firesides  with  strains 
dedicated  to  household  love,  which  live  in  every 
heart,  and  are  heard  from  every  tongue. 

Few  of  our  poets  have  been  happy  in  their  wives ; 
Shakespeare  neglected  his,  and  all  but  forgot  her  in 
his  will;  Milton,  though  more  than  once  married, 
was  unable  to  find  that  domestic  quiet  which,  per- 
haps his  own  nature  prevented  him  from  obtaining ; 
the  poems  of  Dryden  bear  witness  to  the  unhappiness 
of  his  choice,  for  the  sharpness  of  his  satire  has  an 
additional  edge  when  a  fling  can  be  had  at  matrimony ; 
and  Addison  sought  the  comfort  abroad,  which  his 
wife,  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Warwick,  denied 
him  at  home.  To  this  the  wife  of  Burns,  the 
''bonnie  Jean"  of  many  a  far-famed  song,  was  an 
exception;  she  was  a  country  girl  of  the  west  of 
Scotland,  remarkable  for  the  elegance  of  her  person 
and  the  sweetness  of  her  voice.  Her  father  was  a 
respectable  Master-Mason  in  Mauchline,  in  good  em- 
ployment, and  with  a  family  of  eleven  children. 
Jean  was  born  in   February  1765,  and  was,  when 


BONNIE  JEAN.  85 

Burns  became  intimate  with  her  but  newly  out  of 
her  teens.  How  her  aquaintance  with  the  poet  be- 
gan, she  loved  to  relate: — she  had  laid  some  linen 
webs  on  the  grass  to  bleach,  and  while  sprinkling 
them  with  water  from  a  neighboring  burn,  a  favorite 
collie  of  the  poet's  ran  across  them,  staining  them 
with  its  feet,  to  fawn  upon  her;  she  struck  at  the 
dog,  when  Burns  stepped  forward,  and  reproached 
her  in  the  words  of  Allan  Ramsay : — 

"E'en  as  he  fawned,  she  strak  the  poor  dumb  tyke." 

The  fair  bleacher  smiled,  and  an  aquaintance  com- 
menced, which  a  country  place  like  Mauchline 
afforded  many  opportunities  to  promote. 

This  ripened  into  love ;  she  was  united  to  Bums, 
and  during  his  too  short  life,  bore  to  him  four  sons 
and  five  daughters,  three  of  whom,  and  these  all 
men,  survive.  She  was  a  kind  and  dutiful  wife,  an 
affectionate  mother,  and  a  good  neighbor.  All  who 
knew  her  liked  her;  and  though  country  bred,  and 
with  moderate  education,  she  was  not  wanting  in 
conversation  fit  for  the  most  accomplished,  and  left 
an  impression  of  her  good  sense  on  the  many 
strangers,  who,  like  pilgrims  to  a  shrine,  went  to  see 
her  for  the  sake  of  the  Bard.  It  should  be  added, 
that  she  danced  with  grace  and  neatness,  and  sang, 
moreover,  Scottish  songs  with  a  spirit,  a  feeling, 
and  a  sweetness  but  seldom  found  together.  ''  She 
has,"  says  Burns  to  Miss  Chalmers,  *'the  finest 
wood-note- wild  I  ever  heard,"  The  two  best  songs 
which  her  charms  called  forth  are  those  beginning — 

**  Of  a'  the  airts  the  win'  can  blaw," 
and 

**  O  were  I  on  Parnassus'  hill." 

The  former  was  written,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  dur- 
ing the  honey  moon ;  and  what  a  glorious  welcome 


86  BONNIE  JEAN. 

to  the  new  farm  does  the  latter  contain !  Had  he 
welcomed  her  to  Hagley  or  to  Stowe,  the  strain 
could  not  have  come  more  freely  from  the  heart,  or 
had  more  of  passion  or  of  poetry  about  it.  One  of 
these  alone  had  been  enough  to  have  embalmed  the 
name  of  Mistress  in  song;  but  the  two  together 
have  immortalized  a  wife. 

But  there  are  other  songs,  excellent  of  their  kind, 
and  only  inferior  in  beauty  because  they  cannot 
abide  comparisim  with  things  perfect,  that  record 
the  beauty  of  Jean  Armour.  How  exquisite  is  this 
brief  strain — the  finest  essences  are  held  in  the 
smallest  bottles: — 

* '  Louis,  what  reck  I  by  thee, 

Or  Geordie  on  his  ocean  ? 
Dyvor,  beggar-loons  to  me — 

I  reign  in  Jeanie's  bosom. 

Let  her  crown  my  love  her  law, 
And  in  her  breast  enthrone  me  ; . 

Kings  and  Nations— s with,  awa'  ! 
Reif  randies,  I  disown  ye  !" 

Jean  Armour,  whose  name  has  no  chance  of  pass- 
ing from  earth,  died  on  Wednesday,  the  26th  of 
March,  1834,  and  was  buried  by  the  side  of  her  hus- 
band, whom  she  had  survived  nearly  eight-and-thirty 
years. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  87 

THE  WIFE  OF  BURNS. 


By  John  Gibson  Lockhart. 


**  To  make  a  happy  fireside  clime 

For  weans  and  wife, 
That's  the  true  pathos  and  sublime 

Of  human  life." 


Bums,  as  soon  as  his  bruised  limb  was  able  for  a 
journey,  rode  to  Mossgiel,  and  went  through  the 
ceremony  of  a  Justice-of  Peace  marriage  with  Jean 
Armour,  in  the  writing-chambers  of  his  friend 
Gavin  Hamilton.  He  then  crossed  the  country  to 
Dalswinton,  and  concluded  his  bargain  with  Mr. 
Miller  as  to  the  farm  of  Ellisland,  on  terms  which 
must  undoubtedly  have  been  considered  by  both 
parties  as  highly  favorable  to  the  poet ;  they  were 
indeed  fixed  by  two  of  Burn's  old  friends  who 
accompanied  him  for  that  purpose  from  Ayrshire. 
The  lease  was  for  four  successive  terms,  of  nineteen 
years  each, — in  all  seventy-six  years;  the  rent  for 
the  first  three  years  and  crops  ;£"5o ;  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  period  ^70.  Mr.  Miller  bound  him- 
self to  defray  the  expenses  of  any  plantations 
which  Burns  might  please  to  make  on  the  banks  of 
the  river;  and  the  farmhouse  and  offices  being  in  a 
dilapidated  condition,  the  new  tenant  was  to  receive 
j^3oo  from  the  proprietor  for  the  erection  of  suit- 
able buildings.  *' The  land,"  says  Allan  Cunning- 
ham, "was  good,  the  rent  moderate,  and  the 
markets  rising, " 

Burns  entered  on  possession  of  his  farm  at  Whit- 
suntide 1788,  but  the  necessary  rebuilding  of  the 
house  prevented  his  removing  Mrs.    Burns  thither 


88  BONNIE  JEAN. 

until  the  season  was  far  advanced.  He  had,  more- 
over, to  qualify  himself  for  holding  his  Excise  com- 
mission by  six  weeks'  attendance  on  the  business  of 
that  profession  in  Tarbolton.  From  these  circum- 
stances, he  had  this  summer  a  wandering  and  un- 
settled life,  and  Dr.  Currie  mentions  this  as  one  of 
his  chief  misfortunes.  "The  poet,"  as  he  says, 
* '  was  continually  riding  between  Ayrshire  and 
Dumfriesshire;  and,  often  spending  a  night  on  the 
road,  sometimes  fell  into  company  and  forgot  the 
good  resolutions  he  had  formed." 

What  these  resolutions  were  the  poet  himself 
shall  tell  us.  On  the  third  day  of  his  residence  at 
Ellisland,  he  thus  writes  to  Mr.  Ainslie:  "  I  have  all 
along  hitherto,  in  the  warfare  of  life,  been  bred  to 
arms,  among  the  light  horse,  the  piquet  guards  of 
fancy,  a  kind  of  hussars  and  Highlanders  of  the 
brain ;  but  I  am  firmly  resolved  to  sell  out  of  these 
giddy  battalions.  Cost  what  it  will,  I  am  deter- 
mined to  buy  in  among  the  grave  squadrons  of 
heavy-armed  thought,  or  the  artillery-corps  of  plod- 
ding contrivance.  *  *  Were  it  not  for  the 
terrors  of  my  ticklish  situation  respecting  a  family 
of  children,  I  am  decidedly  of  opinion  that  the  step 
I  have  taken  is  vastly  for  my  happiness." 

To  all  his  friends  he  expresses  himself  in  terms 
of  similar  satisfaction  in  regard  to  his  marriage. 
"  Your  surmise,  madam,"  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Dunlop 
(July  loth),  "  is  just.  I  am  indeed  a  husband.  I 
found  a  once  much-loved,  and  still  much-loved 
female,  literally  and  truly  cast  out  to  the  mercy  of 
the  naked  elements,  but  as  I  enabled  her  to  purchase 
a  shelter,  and  there  is  no  sporting  with  a  fellow- 
creatures  happiness  or  misery.  The  most  placid 
good-nature  and  sweetness  of  disposition;  a  warm 
heart,  gratefully  devoted  with  all  its  powers  to  love 


BONNIE  JEAN,  89 

me;  vigorous  health  and  sprightly  cheerfulness,  set 
off  to  the  best  advantage  by  a  more  than  commonly 
handsome  figure;  these,  I  think,  in  a  woman,  may 
make  a  good  wife,  though  she  should  never  have 
read  a  page  but  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  nor  danced  in  higher  assembly  than  a 
penny-pay  wedding  *  *  To  jealousy  or  in- 
fidelity I  am,  an  equal  stranger;  my  preservative 
from  the  first,  is  the  most  thorough  consciousness  of 
her  sentiments  of  honor,  and  her  attachment  to  me ; 
my  antidote  against  the  last,  is  my  long  and  deep- 
rooted  affection  for  her.  In  housewife  matters,  of 
aptness  to  learn,  and  activity  to  execute,  she  is  em- 
inently mistress,  and  during  my  absence  in  Niths- 
dale,  she  is  regularly  and  constantly  an  apprentice 
to  my  mother  and  sisters  in  their  dairy,  and  other 
rural 'business.  *  *  You  are  right  that  a 
bachelor  state  would  have  ensured  me  more  friends ; 
but  from  a  cause  you  will  easily  guess,  conscious 
peace  in  the  enjoyment  of  my  own  mind,  and  tm- 
mistrusting  confidence  in  approaching  my  God, 
would  seldom  have  been  of  the  number." 

Some  months  later,  he  tells  Miss  Chalmers  that  his 
marriage  "  was  not,  perhaps,  in  consequence  of  the 
attachment  of  romance,"  he  is  addressing  a  young 
lady — "but,"  he  continues,  "  I  have  no  cause  to  re- 
pent it.  If  I  have  not  got  polite  tattle,  modish  man- 
ners, and  fashionable  dress,  I  am  not  sickened  and 
disgusted  with  the  multiform  curse  of  boarding- 
school  affectation;  and  I  have  got  the  handsomest 
figure,  sweetest  temper,  the  soundest  constitution, 
and  the  kindest  heart  in  the  country.  Mrs.  Burns 
believes  as  firmly  as  her  creed,  that  I  am  "le  plus 
esprit  et  le  plus  honnet  homme"  in  the  universe; 
although  she  scarcely  ever,  in  her  life,  except  the 
Scriptures  and  the  Psalms  of  David  in  metre,  spent 


90  BONNIE  JEAN. 

five  minutes  together  on  either  prose  or  verse — I 
must  except  also  a  certain  late  publication  of  Scotch 
Poems,  which  she  has  perused  very  devoutly,  and, 
all  the  Ballads  of  the  country,  as  she  has  (O  the 
partial  lover  you  will  say)  the  finest  wood-note- wild 
I  ever  heard." 

It  was  during  this  honeymoon,  as  he  calls  it,  while 
chiefly  resident  in  a  miserable  hovel  at  Ellisland, 
and  only  occasionally  spending  a  day  or  two  in  Ayr- 
shire, that  he  wrote  the  beautiful  song — 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw, 

I  dearly  Hke  the  west  ; 
For  there  the  bonnie  lassie  lives, 

The  lassie  I  lo'e  best ; 
There  wild- woods  grow,  and  rivers  row, 

And  mony  a  hill  between  ; 
But  day  and  night  my  fancy's  flight 

Is  ever  wi'  my  Jean. 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and"  fair  : 
I  see  her  in  the  tunefu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower,  that  springs, 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green  ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings. 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean." 

'*A  discerning  reader,"  says  Mr.  Walker,  "will 
perceive  that  the  letters  in  which  he  announces  his 
marriage  to  some  of  his  most  respected  correspond- 
ents, are  written  in  that  state  when  the  mind  is 
pained  by  reflecting  on  an  unwelcome  step,  and  finds 
relief  to  itself  in  seeking  arguments  to  justify  the 
deed,  and  lessen  its  advantages  in  the  opinion* of 
others."  I  confess  I  am  not  able  to  discern  any 
traces  of  this  kind  of  feeling  in  any  of  Burns's 
letters  on  this  interesting  and  important  occasion. 
Mr.  Walker  seems  to  take  it  for  granted,   that  be- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  91 

cause  Burns  admired  the  superior  manners  and 
accomplishments  of  women  of  the  higher  ranks  of 
society,  he  must  necessarily,  whenever  he  discovered 
"the  interest  which  he  had  the  power  of  creating" 
in  such  persons,  have  aspired  to  find  a  wife  among 
them.  But  it  is,  to  say  the  least  of  the  matter, 
extremely  doubtful,  that  Burns,  if  he  had  had  a 
mind,  could  have  found  any  high-born  maiden  will- 
ing to  partake  sucn  fortunes  as  his  were  likely  to  be, 
and  yet  possessed  of  such  qualifications  for  making 
him  a  happy  man,  as  he  had  ready  for  his  acceptance 
in  his  "  Bonnie  Jean."  The  proud  heart  of  the  poet 
could  never  have  stooped  itself  to  woo  for  gold ;  and 
birth  and  high-breeding  could  only  have  been  intro- 
duced into  a  farmhouse  to  embitter,  in  the  upshot, 
the  whole  existence  of  its  inmates.  It  is  very  easy 
to  say,  that  had  Burns  married  an  accomplished 
woman,  he  might  have  found  domestic  evenings 
sufficient  to  satisfy  all  the  cravings  of  his  mind — 
abandoned  tavern  haunts  and  jollities  for  ever — and 
settled  down  into  a  regular  pattern-character.  But 
it  is  at  least  as  possible,  that  consequences  of  an 
exactly  opposite  nature  might  have  ensued.  Any 
marriage,  such  as  Professor  Walker  alludes  to, 
would,  in  his  case,  have  been  more  unequal  than 
either  of  those  that  made  Dryden  and  Addison 
miserable  for  life.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  his  "Life 
of  Dryden"  (p.  90),  has  well  described  the  difficult 
situation  of  her  who  has  ' '  to  endure  the  apparently 
causeless  fluctuation  of  spirits  incident  to  one 
doomed  to  labour  incessantly  in  the  feverish  exercise 
of 'the  imagination.  Unintentional  neglect,"  says 
he,  ' '  and  the  inevitable  relaxation,  or  rather  sinking 
of  spirit,  which  follows  violent  mental  exertion,  are 
easily  misconstrued  into  capricious  rudeness,  or  in- 
tentional offence,  and  life  is  embittered  by  mutual 


92  BONNIE  JEAN. 

accusation,  not  less  intolerable  because  reciprocally 
unjust."  Such  were  the  difficulties  under  which  the 
domestic  peace  both  of  Addison  and  Dryden  went 
to  wreck;  and  yet,  say  nothing  of  manners  and 
habits  of  the  highest  elegance  and  polish  in  either 
case,  they  were  both  of  them  men  of  strictly  pure 
and  correct  conduct  in  their  conjugal  capacities;  and 
who  can  doubt  that  all  these  difficulties  must  have 
been  enhanced  tenfold,  had  any  women  of  superior 
condition  linked  her  fortunes  with  Robert  Burns,  a 
man  at  once  of  the  very  warmest  animal  tempera- 
ment, and  the  most  wayward  and  moody  of  all  his 
melancholy  and  irritable  tribe,  who  had  little  vanity 
that  could  have  been  grateful  by  a  species  of  con- 
nection, which,  unless  he  had  found  a  human ,  angel, 
must  have  been  continually  wounding  his  pride? 
But,  in  truth,  these  speculations  are  all  worse  than 
worthless.  Burns,  with  all  his  faults,  was  an  honest 
and  high-spirited  man,  and  he  loved  the  mother  of 
his  children ;  and  had  he  hesitated  to  make  her  his 
wife,  he  must  have  sunk  into  the  callousness  of  a 
ruffian,  or  that  misery  of  miseries,  the  remorse  of  a 
poet. 

The  Reverend  Hamilton  Paul  ("  Life  of  Burns," 
p.  45)  takes  an  original  view  of  this  business  "  Much 
praise,"  says  he,  "has  been  lavished  on  Burns  for 
renewing  his  engagement  with  Jean  when  in  the 
blaze  of  his  fame.  *  *  The  praise  is  mis- 
placed. We  do  not  think  a  man  entitled  to  credit  or 
commendation  for  doing  what  the  law  could  compel 
him  to  perform.  Burns  was  in  reality  a  married 
man,  and  it  is  truly  ludicrous  to  hear  him,  aware,  as 
he  must  have  been,  of  the  indissoluble  power  of  the 
obligation,  though  every  document  was  destroyed, 
talking  of  himself  as  a  bachelor." 

To  return  to  our  story.     Burns  complains  sadly  of 


BONNIE  JEAN.  93 

solitary  condition,  when  living  in  the  only  hovel  that 
he  found  extant  on  his  farm.  "I  am,"  says  he 
(September  9th),  "  busy  with  my  harvest;  but  for 
all  that  most  pleasurable  part  of  life  called  social 
intercourse,  I  am  here  at  the  very  elbow  of  existence. 
The  only  things  that  are  to  be  found  in  this  country 
in  any  degree  of  perfection  are  stupidity  and  cant- 
ing. Prose,  they  only  know  in  graces,  etc. ,  and  the 
value  of  these  they  estimate  as  they  do  their  plaid- 
ing  webs,  by  the  ell.  As  for  the  Muses,  they  have 
as  much  idea  of  a  rhinoceros  as  of  a  poet."  And 
in  a  letter  to  Miss  Chalmers  (September  i6th,  1788,) 
he  says,  '*  This  hovel  that  I  shelter  in  while  occa- 
sionally here  is  pervious  to  every  blast  that  blows, 
and  every  shower  that  falls,  and  I  am  only  pre- 
served from  being  chilled  to  death  by  being  suffo- 
cated by  smoke.  You  will  be  pleased  to  hear  that  I 
have  laid  aside  idle  eclat,  and  bind  every  day  after 
my  reapers." 

His  house,  however,  did  not  take  much  time  in 
building,  nor  had  he  reason  to  complain  of  want  of 
society  long ;  nor,  it  must  be  added,  did  Bums  bind 
every  day  after  the  reapers. 

He  brought  his  wife  home  to  Ellisland  about  the 
end  of  November ;  and  few  housekeepers  start  with 
a  larger  provision  of  young  mouths  to  feed  than  did 
this  couple.  Mrs.  Burns  had  lain  in- this  autumn, 
for  the  second  time,  of  twins,  and  I  suppose  "  sonsy, 
smirking,  dear-bought  Bess"  accompanied  her 
younger  brothers  and  sisters  from  Mossgiel.  From 
that  quarter  also  Burns  brought  a  whole  establish- 
ment of  servants,  male  and  female,  who,  of  course, 
as  was  then  the  universal  custom  amongst  the  small 
farmers,  both  of  the  west  and  south  of  Scotland, 
partook,  at  the  same  table,  of  the  same  fare  with 
their  master  and  mistress. 


94  BONNIE  JEAN. 

EUisland  is  beautifully  situated  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nith,  about  six  miles  above  Dumfries,  exactly 
opposite  to  the  house  of  Dalswinton,  and  those  noble 
woods  and  gardens  amidst  which  Burns's  landlord, 
the  ingenious  Mr.  Patrick  Miller,  found  relaxation 
from  the  scientific  studies  and  researches  in  which 
he  so  greatly  excelled.  On  the  Dalswinton  side,  the 
river  washes  lawns  and  groves:  but  over  against 
these  the  bank  rises  into  a  long  red  scant  of  consid- 
erable height,  along  the  verge  of  which,  where  the 
bare  shingle  of  the  precipice  all  but  overhangs  the 
stream.  Burns  had  his  favourite  walk,  and  might 
now  be  seen  striding  alone,  early  and  late,  especially 
when  the  winds  were  loud,  and  the  waters  below 
him  swollen  and  turbulent.  For  he  was  one  of 
those  that  enjoy  nature  most  in  the  more  serious  and 
severe  of  her  aspects;  and  throughout  his  poetry, 
for  one  allusion  to  the  liveliness  of  spring,  or  the 
splendor  of  summer,  it  would  be  easy  to  point  out 
twenty  in  which  he  records  the  solemn  delight  with 
which  he  contemplated  the  melancholy  grandeur  of 
autumn,  or  the  savage  .gloom  of  winter.  Indeed,  I 
cannot  but  think,  that  the  result  of  an  exact  inquiry 
into  the  composition  of  Burns's  poems,  would  be, 
that  "his  vein,"  like  that  of  Milton,  flowed  most 
happily  "from  the  autumnal  equinox  to  the  vernal." 
Of  Lord  Byron,  we  know  that  his  vein  flowed  best 
at  midnight ;  and  Burns  has  himself  told  us,  that  it 
was  his  custom  "to  take  a  gloamin'  shot  at  the 
Muses." 

The  poet  was  accustomed  to  say,  that  the  most 
happy  period  of  his  life  was  the  first  winter  he  spent 
at  Ellisland,  for  the  first  time  under  a  roof  of  his 
own,  with  his  wife  and  children  about  him :  and  in 
spite  of  occasional  lapses  into  the  melancholy  which 
had  haunted  his  youth,  looking  forward  to  a  life  of 


BONNIE  JEAN.  95 

well-regulated,  and  not  ill-rewarded,  industry.  It  is 
known  that  he  welcomed  his  wife  to  her  roof-tree  at 
Ellisland  in  the  song, — 

**I  hae  a  wife  o'  my  ain,  I'll  partake  wi'  naebody  ; 
I'll  tak  cuckold  frae  nane,  I'll  gie  cuckold  to  naebody. 
I  hae  a  penny  to  spend — there,  thanks  to  naebody  ; 
I  hae  nothing  to  lend — I'll  borrow  frae  naebody." 

In  commenting  on  this  "  little  lively  lucky  song," 
as  he  well  calls  it,  Mr.  Allan  Cunningham  says: 
**  Burns  had  built  his  house, — he  had  committed  his 
seed — corn  to  the  ground, — he  was  in  the  prime,  nay 
the  morning  of  life, — and  strength,  and  agricultural 
skill  were  on  his  side, — his  genius  had  been 
acknowledged  by  his  country,  and  rewarded  by  a 
subscription  more  extensive  than  any  Scottish  poet 
ever  received  before ;  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  he 
broke  out  into  voluntary  song,  expressive  of  his 
sense  of  importance  and  independance. "  Another 
song  was  composed  in  honor  of  Mrs.  Burns,  during 
the  happy  weeks  that  followed  her  arrival  at 
Ellisland : — 

"Oh,  were  I  on  Parnassus  hill, 
Or  had  of  Helicon  my  fill, 
That  I  might  catch  poetic  skill, 
To  sing  how  dear  I  love  thee  ! 

But  Nith  maun  be  my  muse's  well, 
My  muse  maun  be  thy  bonnie  sel', 
On  Corsincon  I'll  glowre  and  spell, 
And  write  how  dear  I  love  thee  !" 


96  BONNIE  JEAN. 

MRS.    BURNS'    CIRCUMSTANCES 
AFTER  THE   POET'S  DEATH. 


The  only  dependence  of  Mrs.  Burns,  after  her 
husband's  death,  was  on  an  annuity  of  ten  pounds, 
arising  from  a  benefit  society  connected  with  the 
Excise,  the  books  and  other  moveable  property  left 
to  her,  and  the  generosity  of  the  public.  The  sub- 
scription, as  we  are  informed  by  Dr.  Currie,  pro- 
duced seven  hundred  pounds ;  and  the  works  of  the 
poet,  as  edited  with  regular  taste  and  judgment  by 
that  gentleman,  brought  nearly  two  thousand  more. 
One  half  of  the  latter  sum  was  lent  on  a  bond  to  a 
Galloway  gentleman  who  continued  to  pay  five  per 
cent,  for  it  till  a  late  period.  Mrs.  Burns  was  thus 
enabled  to  support  and  educate  her  family  in  a  man- 
ner creditable  to  the  memory  of  her  husband.  She 
continued  to  reside  in  the  house  which  had  been 
occupied  by  her  husband  and  herself,  and 

**  never  changed,  nor  wished  to  change  her  place." 

For  many  years  after  her  sons  had  left  her  to  pursue 
their  fortunes  in  the  world,  she  lived  in  a  decent  and 
respectable  manner,  on  an  income  which  never 
amounted  to  more  than  ;^62  per  annum.  At  length, 
in  1817,  at  a  festival  held  in  Edinburgh  to  celebrate 
the  birth-day  of  the  bard,  Mr.  Henry,  (now  Lord) 
Cockburn  acting  as  president,  it  was  proposed  by 
Mr.  Maule  of  Panmure  (now  Lord  Panmure),  that 
some  permanent  addition  should  be  made  to  the  in- 
come of  the  poet's  widow.  The  idea  appeared  to  be 
favourably  received,  but  the  subscription  did  not  fill 
rapidly.  Mr.  Maule  then  said  that  the  burden  of 
the  provision  should  fall  upon  himself,  and  immed- 


BONNIE   JEAN.  97 

lately  executed  a  bond,  entitling  Mrs.  Burns  to  an 
annuity  of  ^50  as  long  as  she  lived.  This  act,  to- 
gether with  the  generosity  of  the  same  gentleman  to 
Nathaniel  Gow,  in  his  latter  and  evil  days,  must 
ever  endear  the  name  of  Lord  Panmure  to  all  who 
feel  warmly  on  the  subjects  of  Scottish  poetry  and 
Scottish  music.  Mr.  Maule's  pension  had  not  been 
enjoyed  by  the  widow  more  than  a  year  and  a  half, 
when  her  youngest  son,  James,  attained  the  rank  of 
Captain  with  a  situation  in  the  commissariat,  and 
was  thus  enabled  to  relieve  her  from  the  necessity 
of  being  beholden  to  a  stranger's  hand  for  any  share 
of  her  support.  She  accordingly  resigned  the 
pension.  Mr.  M'Dlarmid,  who  records  these  cir- 
cumstances, adds  in  another  place,  that  during  her 
subsequent  years,  Mrs.  Burns  enjoyed  an  income  of 
about  two  hundred  a  year,  a  great  part  of  which,  as 
it  was  not  needed  by  her,  she  dispensed  in  charities. 
Her  whole  conduct  in  widowhood  was  such  as  to 
secure  universal  esteem  in  the  town  where  she 
resided.  She  died  March  26,  1834,  in  the  68th  year 
of  her  age,  and  was  buried  beside  her  illustrious 
husband,  in  the  mausoleum  at  Dumfries. 


BONNIE  JEAN. 

BONNIE  JEAN. 

By  George  Dobie. 

We'll  sing  the  nicht  Jean  Armour's  praise, 

She's  worthy  o'  a  sang, 
For  it  was  Burns,  her  ain  guidman, 

That  raised  her  'bin  the  thrang. 
While  bleechin'  claes  on  Mauchline  Braes, 

By  Rab  she  first  was  seen, 
Where  Cupid's  darts  pierced  baith  the  hearts 

O'  Burns  and  bonnie  Jean. 

Jean  was  the  jewel  o'  his  heart. 

The  apple  o'  his  e'e. 
And  little  kent  that  country  maid 

That  she  a  queen  wad  be. 
For  to  us  lang  she'll  reign  in  sang, 

And  gain  oor  high  esteem ; 
She  prov'd  through  life  a  faithfu'  wife. 

Our  poet's  bonnie  Jean. 

To  Burns,  Jean  was  the  sweetest  lass 

That  ever  graced  the  West, 
Nae  ither  belle  could  her  surpass. 

She  was  to  him  the  best. 
The  westlin'  win's  will  cease  to  blaw, 

And  go  wans  deck  the  green, 
Before  it  ever  fades  awa' 

The  name  o'  bonnie  Jean. 

On  this,  the  poet's  natal  day. 

We'll  sing  to  bonnie  Jean ; 
Had  Rab  himsel'  been  here  to  hear't. 

He  had  been  proud,  I  ween. 
For  this  ance  charmin',  artless  lass. 

This  peerless  village  queen. 
She'll  lang  remembered  be  by  us 

As  Burn's  bonnie  Jean. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  99 

DEATH  AND  CHARACTER  OF  MRS. 
BURNS. 


From  Blackie's  Edition  of  Bums. 


At  a  late  hour  of  the  night  of  Wednesday,  the  26th 
March,  1834,  the  world  and  its  concerns  closed  for- 
ever on  Mrs.  Jean  Armour, — the  venerable  relict  of 
the  Poet  Burns.  On  the  Saturday  preceding,  she 
was  seized  with  paral3^sis  for  the  fourth  time  during 
the  last  few  years;  and  although  perfectly  con- 
scious of  her  situation,  and  the  presence  of  friends, 
became  deprived,  before  she  could  be  removed  to 
bed,  of  the  faculty  of  speech,  and  in  a  day  or  two 
thereafter  of  the  sense  of  hearing.  Still  she  lay 
wonderfully  calm  and  composed,  and,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  medical  attendant,  suffered  from  weakness 
rather  than  from  pain.  Frequently  she  gazed,  with 
the  greatest  earnestness,  on  her  grand-daughter, 
Sarah;  and  it  was  easy  to  read  what  was  passing 
within,  from  the  tears  that  filled  her  aged  eyes,  and 
trickled  down  her  cheeks.  To  another  individual 
she  directed  looks  so  eager  and  full  of  meaning,  as 
to  impress  him  with  the  idea  that  she  had  some 
dying  request  to  make,  and  deeply  regretted  that  it 
was  too  late ;  for  even  if  her  salvation  had  depended 
on  the  exertion,  she  was  unfortunately  incapacitated 
from  uttering  a  syllable,  guiding  a  pen,  or  even  mak- 
ing an  intelligent  sign.  The  mind,  in  her  case, 
survived  the  body;  and  this,  perhaps,  was  the  only 
painful  circumstances  attending  her  death-bed, — con- 
sidering how  admirable  her  conduct  had  always  been, 
her  general  health  so  sound,  her  span  protracted  be- 
yond the  common  lot,  her   character   for   prudence 


loo  BONNIE  JEAN. 

and  piety  so  well  established,  and  her  situation  in 
life  every  way  so  comfortable.  On  the  night  of 
Tuesday,  or  morning  of  Wednesday,  a  fifth  shock, 
unperceived  by  the  attendants,  deprived  Mrs.  Burns 
of  mental  consciousness;  and  from  that  time,  till 
the  hour  of  her  death,  her  situation  was  exactly  that 
of  a  breathing  corpse.  And  thus  passed  away  all 
that  remained  of  *' Bonnie  Jean," — the  relict  of  a 
man,  whose  fame  is  as  wide  as  the  world  itself,  and 
the  venerated  heroine  of  many  a  lay  which  bid  fair 
to  live  in  the  memories  of  the  people  of  Scotland, 
and  of  thousands  far  removed  from  its  shores,  as 
long  as  the  language  in  which  they  are  written  is 
spoken  or  understood. 

The  deceased  was  born  at  Mauchline,  in  February 
1765,  and  had  thus  entered  the  seventieth  year  of 
her  age.  Her  father  was  an  industrious  master 
mason,  in  good  employment,  who  enjoyed  the  esteem 
of  the  gentry  and  others  within  the  district,  and 
reared  the  numerous  family  of  eleven  sons  and 
daughters,  four  of  whom  still  survive, — viz:  Robert, 
a  respectable  merchant  in  London ;  James,  who  re- 
sides in  the  town  of  Paisley;  Mrs.  Lees  and  Mrs. 
Brown.  The  alleged  circumstances  attending  Mrs. 
Burns'  union  with  the  Bard  are  well  known,  and 
may  be  dismissed  with  the  remark,  that  we  have 
good  authority  for  saying,  that  they  have  been  in- 
correctly narrated  by  nearly  every  writer  who  has 
touched  upon  the  subject.  To  the  poet,  Jean 
Armour  bore  a  family  of  five  sons  and  four  daughters. 
The  whole  of  the  latter  died  in  early  life,  and  were 
interred  in  the  cemetery  of  their  maternal  grand- 
father in  Mauchline  church-yard.  Of  the  sons  two 
died  very  young, — viz:  Francis  Wallace  and  Max- 
well Burns,  the  last  of  whom  was  a  posthumos  child, 
born  the  very  day  his  father  was  buried.     Of  the 


BONNIE  JEAN.  loi 

said  family  of  nine  three  sons  survive — Robert,  the 
eldest,  a  retired  officer  of  the  Accomptant-Generars 
Department,  Stamp  Office,  London,  now  in  Dum- 
fries; and  William  and  James  Glencairn  Burns,  in 
the  Hon.  the  East  India  Company's  service. 

Burns  certainly  left  his  family  poor,  (and  how 
could  it  be  otherwise?)  but  it  is  not  true,  as  Collector 
Findlater  has  most  successfully  shown,  that  they 
were  in  immediate  want,  or  lacked  any  necessary 
comfort.  The  relief  fund  annuity  of  an  Excise- 
man's widow  is  known  to  be  small  (now,  we  believe 
about  ^12  per  annum);  but  Providence,  shortly 
after  the  husband  and  father's  decease,  raised  up  to 
the  family  many  valuable  friends.  Passing  exigen- 
cies were  supplied  from  this  honourable  source ;  and 
no  lengthened  period  elapsed  until  the  active  and 
disinterested  benevolence  of  Dr.  Currie,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  excellent  talents,  placed  at  the  feet  of 
the  family,  to  the  great  delight  of  the  people  of 
Scotland,  very  nearly  ^2,000  sterling,  in  name  of 
profits  arising  from  the  Liverpool  edition  of  the 
Poet's  works.  The  Poet  died  in  1796,  and  up  to 
1818,  his  widow's  income  exceeded  not,  if  it  equalled, 
sixty  pounds  per  annum.  But  on  this  sum,  small  as 
it  may  appear,  she  contrived  to  maintain  a  decent 
appearance,  was  never  known  to  be  in  debt  or  want- 
ing in  charity — so  unaspiring  were  her  ambition  and 
views,  and  undeviating  her  prudence,  economy,  and 
frugality.  At  the  period  just  mentioned.  Captain 
James  Glencairn  Burns  wrote  in  breathless  haste 
from  India  to  say  that  having  obtained  promotion, 
through  the  kindness  of  the  Marquis  of  Hastings, 
he  had  been  enabled  to  set  apart  ^150  yearly  for  the 
uses  of  his  mother,  and,  as  an  earnest  of  affection, 
transmitted  a  draft  for  ^^75.  And  it  is  due  to  this 
gentleman  to  say,  that  from  first  to  last,  including 


I02  BONNIE  JEAN. 

some  assistance  from  his  brother,  and  allowances  for 
his  infant  daughter,  Sarah,  he  remitted  his  mother  in 
all  the  handsome  sum  of  ^£2,400  sterling.  Leave  of 
absence,  and  some  other  circumstances,  at  length 
impaired  the  means,  and  changed  the  fortunes,  of 
the  individual  alluded  to;  Captain  William  Burns, 
later  in  life  very  cheerfully  took  his  brother's  place, 
and  discharged,  with  equal  promptitude,  generosity, 
and  affection,  duties  dear  to  the  best  and  kindliest 
feelings  of  our  nature.  In  this  way,  for  sixteen 
years  at  the  least,  Mrs.  Burns  enjoyed  an  income  of 
^200  per  annum — a  change  of  fortune  which  en- 
abled her  to  add  many  comforts  to  her  decent  domi- 
cile, watch  over  the  education  of  a  favourite  grand- 
child, and  exercise,  on  a  broader  scale,  the  Christian 
duty  of  charity,  which  she  did  the  more  efficiently 
by  acting  in  most  cases  as  her  own  almoner. 

It  is  generally  known,  that  Mrs.  Dunlop  of  Dunlop 
was  the  first  efficient  patroness  of  Robert  Burns.  Of 
the  accuracy  of  this  fact  his  writings  furnish  the  most 
undoubted  proof;  and  it  would  appear  that  her 
children  inherited  her  feelings  and  spread  the  same 
mantle  of  friendship  over  the  Poet's  family.  For  a 
greater  number  of  years  than  our  memory  can 
trace,  Mrs.  Burns  dined  every  Sunday,  after  attend- 
ing the  divine  service  in  St.  Michael's  Church,  with 
the  late  Mrs,  Perochan,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Mrs. 
Dunlop  of  Dunlop;  and  was  noticed  and  patronised 
in  the  most  flattering  manner  by  various  living 
members  of  the  same  ancient  family,  who  might 
feel  offended  did  we  dare  to  record  all  we  happen 
to  know  of  their  exertions  in  a  cause  v/hich  Scots- 
men, wherever  situated,  are  prone  to  identify  with 
the  land  of  their  birth. 

The  term  of  Mrs.  Burns'  widowhood  extended  to 
thirty-eight   years,  in    itself  rather   an  unusual  cir- 


BONNIE  JEAN.  103 

cumstance — and  in  July  1796,  v/hen  the  bereavement 
occurred,  she  was  but  little  beyond  the  age  at  which 
the  majority  of  females  marry.  But  she  had  too 
much  respect  for  the  memory  of  her  husband,  and 
regard  for  his  children,  to  think  of  changing  her 
name,  although  she  might  have  done  so  more  than 
once  with  advantage ;  and  was  even  careful  to  secure 
on  lease,  and  repair  and  embellish,  as  soon  as  she 
conld  afford  it,  the  decent  though  modest  mansion 
in  which  he  died.  And  here,  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  she  was  visited  by  thousands  of  strangers 
from  the  Peer  down  to  itinerant  sonneteers — a  class 
of  persons  to  whom  she  never  refused  an  audience, 
or  dismissed  unrewarded.  Occasionally,  during  the 
summer  months,  she  was  a  good  deal  annoyed ;  but 
she  bore  all  in  patience,  and  although  naturally  fond 
of  quiet,  seemed  to  consider  her  house  as  open  to 
visitors,  and  its  mistress,  in  some  degree,  the  prop- 
erty of  the  public.  But  the  attentions  of  strangers 
neither  turned  her  head,  nor  were  ever  alluded  to  in 
the  spirit  of  boasting ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  a  fe- 
male friend  who  accompanied  her  on  one  occasion  to 
the  King's  Arms  Inn,  to  meet,  by  invitation,  the 
Marchioness  of  Hastings,  no  one  could  have  known 
that  that  excellent  lady  directed  the  present  Marquis, 
who  was  then  a  boy,  to  pre>sent  Mrs.  Burns  with  a 
glass  of  wine,  and  at  the  same  time  remarked  that 
"he  should  consider  himself  very  highly  honoured, 
and  cherish  the  recollection  of  having  met  the  Poet's 
w4dow,  as  long  as  he  lived."  Hers,  in  short,  was 
one  of  those  well-balanced  minds  that  cling  instinct- 
ively to  propriety  and  the  medium  in  all  things ;  and 
such  as  knew  the  deceased,  earliest  and  latest,  were 
unconscious  of  any  change  in  her  demeanor  and 
habits,  ex-epli  ig,  perhaps,  greater  attention  to  dress, 
i\\V\  \Y\.-\K.    refLneincnt   of    manner,     insensibly     ac- 


I04  BONNIE  JEAN. 

quired  by  frequent  intercourse  with  families  of  the 
first  respectability.  In  her  tastes,  she  was  frugal, 
simple,  and  pure ;  and  delighted  in  music,  pictures, 
and  flowers.  In  spring  and  summer,  it  was  im- 
possible to  pass  her  windows  without  being  struck 
with  the  beauty  of  the  floral  treasures  they  con- 
tained ;  and  if  extravagant  in  anything,  it  was  in  the 
article  of  roots  and  plants  of  the  finest  sort.  Fond 
of  the  society  of  young  people,  she  mingled,  as  long 
as  able,  in  their  innocent  pleasures,  and  cheerfully 
filled  for  them  the  cup  "  which  cheers  but  not  ineb- 
riates." Although  neither  a  sentimentalist  nor  a 
"  blue  stocking,"  she  was  a  clever  woman,  possessed 
great  shrewdness,  discriminated  character  admirably, 
and  frequently  made  very  pithy  remarks;  and  were 
this  the  proper  place  for  such  detail  proofs  of  what 
is  stated  might  easily  be  adduced. 

When  young,  she  must  have  been  a  handsome 
comely  woman,  if  not  indeed  a  beauty,  when  the 
Poet  saw  her  for  the  first  time  on  a  bleaching- green 
at  Mauchline,  engaged  like  Peggy  and  Jenny  at 
Habbie's  Howe.  Her  limbs  were  cast  in  the  finest 
mould;  and  up  to  middle  life  her  jet-black  eyes  were 
clear  and  sparkling,  her  carriage  easy,  and  her  step 
light.  The  writer  of  the  present  sketch  never  saw 
Mrs,  Burns  dance,  nor  heard  her  sing;  but  he  has 
learned  from  others  that  she  moved  with  great  grace 
on  the  floor,  and  chanted  her  "wood-notes  wild  "  in 
a  style  but  rarely  equalled  by  unprofessional  singers. 
Her  voice  was  a  brilliant  treble,  and  in  singing 
"Coolen,"  "I  gaed  a  waefu'  gate  yestreen,"  and 
other  songs,  she  rose  without  effort  as  high  as  B 
natural.  In  ballad  poetry  her  taste  was  good,  and 
range  of  reading  rather  extensive.  Her  memory, 
too,  was  strong,  and  she  could  quote  when  she 
chose  at  considerable  length,  and  with  great  aptitude. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  105 

Of  these  powers  the  bard  was  so  well  aware  that  he 
read  to  her  almost  every  piece  he  composed,  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  own  that  he  had  prohted  by  her 
judg-ment.  In  fact,  none  save  relations,  neighbors, 
and  friends,  could  form  a  proper  estimate  of  the 
character  of  Mrs.  Burns.  In  the  presence  of 
strangers  she  was  shy  and  silent,  and  required  to  be 
drawn  out,  or,  as  some  say,  shown  off  to  advantage, 
by  persons  who  possessed  her  confidence,  and  knew 
her  intimately. 

But  we  have,  perhaps,  said  enough,  and  although 
our  heart  has  been  thrown  into  our  words,  the  por- 
trait given  is  so  strictly  true  to  nature,  that  we  con- 
clude by  saying,  in  the  spirit  of  friendship,  not  of 
yesterday, — peace  to  the  manes,  and  honour  to  the 
memory,  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

The  remains  of  Mrs.  Burns  were  interred  in  the 
family  vault  on  Tuesday,  the  ist  April,  with  many 
marks  of  public  respect,  in  presence  of  an  immense 
crowd  of  spectators.  Independently  of  the  Bard's 
Mausoleum,  St.  Michael's  Churchyard  is  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  cemetery  in  Britain ;  amidst  in- 
numerable tombs  thousands  on  thousands  sleep  be- 
low; and  on  the  day  alluded  to,  public  interest  or 
curiosity  waxed  so  intensely,  that  it  became,  if  such 
an  expression  may  be  used,  instinct  with  life  as  well 
as  death.  By  many,  a  strong  wish  was  expressed 
that  the  funeral  should  be  made  broadly  public; 
others  again  objected  to  everything  like  parade,  as 
unsuited  to  the  quiet  retiring  character  of  the  de- 
ceased ;  and  amidst  counsels  and  wishes  so  opposite 
and  conflicting,  the  relatives  and  executors  had  a 
duty  to  discharge  which  was  felt  to  be  exceedingly 
onerous  and  perplexing.  The  Magistrates  and  Com- 
missioners of  Police  politely  offered  to  mark  their 
respect  for  Mrs.   Burns'  memory  by  attending  her 


io6  BONNIE  JEAN. 

funeral  in  their  public  capacity — an  offer  so  honour- 
able that  it  was  at  once  acknowledg^ed  and  acceded 
to  by  the  trustees.  But  something  more  was  wanted, 
in  the  opinion  of  at  least  a  portion  of  the  public; 
and  as  the  street  in  which  the  deceased  resided  is 
short,  narrow  and  situated  so  near  to  the  church- 
yard, as  to  injure  the  appearance  of  the  procession, 
it  was  anxiously  asked  that  the  coffin  should  be  con- 
veyed in  a  hearse  to  the  Council  Chambers  stairs, 
and  from  thence  carried  shoulder-high  along  the 
line  of  the  principal  street.  Oa  reflection,  however, 
it  was  deemed  better  that  the  living  should  go  to  the 
dead,  than  the  dead  to  the  livins:  The  Ma'^istrates 
agreed  in  the  propriety  of  this,  and  issued  cards  to 
the  whole  of  the  Council,  appointing  a  meeting  at 
half-past  eleven  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  at  which 
hour  they  assembled,  and  shortly  after  moved  in  a 
body  to  Burns'  street,  amidst  a  throng  of  people, 
many  of  whom  had  voluntarily  arrayed  themselves 
in  sables  such  as  has  rarely  been  witnessed  on  the 
streets  of  Dumfries.  Between  two  and  three  hund- 
red funeral  letters  w^ere  issued  in  compliance  with 
the  usual  custom  ;  and  in  this  way,  while  the  private 
feeling  of  friends  were  conciliated,  the  public  were 
gratified  in  as  far  as  was  deemed  consistent  with  the 
rules  of  decorum. 

As  many  persons  were  received  into  the  house  as 
it  could  possibly  contain,  including  various  clergy- 
men, citizen  friends,  and  country  gentlemen,  among 
the  latter  of  whom  we  observed  Sir  Thos.  Wallace, 
a  kind  personal  friend  of  the  deceased;  Sir  Thos. 
Kirkpatrick;  Mr.  Dunlop,  Southwick;  Mr.  Jas. 
M'Alpine  Leny  of  Dalswinton;  Mr.  John  Dunlop, 
Rosefield;  Mr.  MacAdam,  of  Castledykes;  Major 
Adair;  Mr.  Hannah,  of  Hannahfield;  Major  Davis; 
Mr.   John  Staig;  the  Provost  and  Magistrates,  &c.. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  107 

&c.  Eloquent  prayers  were  put  upon  the  occasion  by 
the  Reverend  Messrs  Wrig-htman,  Fyffe,  Dunlop, 
and  Wallace;  and  after  the  usual  forms  had  been 
observed,  the  coffin  was  placed  on  spokes,  and  borne 
by  many  to  its  final  resting  place.  Throwing  a  stone 
to  a  chieftain's  cairn  was  deemed  an  honour  by  our 
Celtic  ancestors,  and  a  similar  feeling  obviously  pre- 
vailed in  regard  to  the  funeral  obsequies  of  the  Poet's 
widow.  Before  one  person  had  well  touched  a  spoke 
he  was  succeeded  by  another,  eager  to  share  in  the 
same  mournful  duty;  and  although  the  distance  was 
extremely  short,  several  hundred  hands  bore  the 
body  along  by  shifting  as  frequently  as  St.  Michael's 
bell  tolled.  Though  the  crowd  was  very  dense, 
forests  of  heads  were  thrown  into  line  as  the  proces- 
sion moved  forward ;  every  window  was  filled  with 
spectators;  numerous  visitors  were  observed  from 
the  country;  and  altogether,  the  scene  reminded 
many  of  the  memorable  day  of  the  Poet's  funeral. 
So  great  was  the  anxiety  to  enter  the  Mausoleum, 
that  the  pressure,  -in  the  first  instance,  occasioned  a 
slight  degree  of  confusion;  but  in  a  minute  or  two 
order  was  restored,  and  the  body  lowered  slowly  and 
solemnly  into  the  family  vault.  The  chief  mourn- 
ers then  descended,  took  the  stations  assigned  to 
them,  and  after  everything  had  been  adjusted, 
placed  the  coffin  in  a  grave  dug  to  the  depth  of  four 
feet.  Five  relatives  attended  the  interment,  viz, 
Mr.  Robert  Burns,  eldest  son  of  the  Poet,  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Armour,  the  widow's  brother,  and  the  husbands 
of  three  nieces,  the  Messrs  Irving  and  Mr.  M'Kin- 
nel.  But  there  were  other  chief  mourners,  and 
among  those  we  observed  Mr.  Dunlop,  of  Southwick, 
Provost  Murray,  Dr.  John  Symons,  Mr.  Bogie,  and 
Mr.  M'Diarmid.  The  grave  was  covered  in  a  brief 
space;    the    chief    mourners   then     withdrew;     and 


io8  BONNIE  JEAN. 

after  every  thing  foreign  had  been  removed  from 
the  vault,  the  executors  gave  the  necessar}^  direc- 
tions for  restoring  the  large  stone  which  guards  the 
entrance  to  the  tomb  of  our  great  national  poet.  As 
this  was  a  task  of  considerable  labour,  hours  elapsed 
before  it  could  be  completed,  and,  in  the  interim, 
thousands  had  an  opportunity  of  gratifying  their 
curiosity  by  taking  a  parting  look  at  the  resting 
place  of  genius. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  109 

BRAVE  BONNIE  JEAN. 


By  Hon.  Wallace  Bruce. 


"  Brave  Bonnie  Jean!"  we  love  to  tell 
The  story  from  thy  lips  that  fell ; 

The  lengthened  life  which  Heaven  gave. 
Casts  radiant  twilight  on  his  grave. 

A  noble  woman,  strong  to  shield ; 

Her  tender  heart  his  trusty  bield ; 
The  critic  from  her  door- way  turns 

With  faith  renewed  and  love  for  Burns. 

She  knew  as  no  one  else  could  know 

The  heavy  burden  of  his  woe ; 
The  carking  care,  the  wasting  pain — 

Each  welded  link  of  misery's  chain. 

She  saw  his  early  sky  o'ercast. 

And  gloomy  shadows  gathering  fast ; 

His  soul  by  bitter  sorrow  torn. 

And  knew  that  "  man  was  made  to  mourn." 

She  heard  him  by  the  sounding  shore 
Which  speaks  his  name  for  evermore, 

And  felt  the  anguish  of  his  prayer : 
*'  Farewell,  the  bonnie  banks  of  Ayr." 


BONNIE  JEAN. 

OF  A'  THE  AIRTS." 


By  Robert  Ford. 


Author  of  "  Thistledown,''''  ''American  Humorists  y'''  etc. 


No  song  of  Burns'  has  enjoyed  greater  public 
favor  or  will  likely  outlast  in  popularity  this,  one  of 
the  sweetest  and  most  impassioned  of  all  his  glorious 
love  lyrics.  It  was  vmtten  in  the  midsummer  of 
the  year  1788,  just  when  the  poet  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  the  farm  of  Ellisland,  in  Dumfries-shire,  and 
was  overseeing  the  erection  of  a  new  farm-house 
and  offices  there,  previous  to  the  reception  of  Jean 
Armour  as  his  legalized  wife.  His  own  note  to  it  .is 
simply  this:  "The  air  is  by  Marshall;  the  song  I 
composed  out  of  compliment  to  Mrs.  Burns.  N.  B. 
— It  was  during  the  honeymoon."  Earlier  in  the 
same  year  he  sent  a  fragment  of  song — "  My  Jean  " 
— to  Johnson's  Museiun^  and  that  is  w^orth  quoting 
here.     There  is  only  one  verse: — 

Tho'  cruel  fate  should  bid  us  part, 

Far  as  the  pole  and  line — 
Her  dear  idea  round  my  heart 

Should  tenderly  entwine. 
Tho'  mountains  rise  and  deserts  howl, 

And  oceans  roar  between — 
Yet,  dearer  than  my  deathless  soul, 

I  still  would  love  my  Jean. 

In  these  ruder,  but  not  less  impassioned,  lines  we 
discover  the  germ  of  the  perfect  lyric  under  com- 
ment.    From  the  figure — 

Tho'  mountains  rise  and  deserts  howl, 
And  oceans  roar  between. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  in 

the  step  in  improvement  is  brief  to — 

There's  wild  woods  grows  and  rivers  row, 
And  mony  a  hill  between. 

And  what  follows  these  lines  in  either  verse  is  not 
dissimilar  in  sentiment.  The  exact  date  of  the  song 
— "Of  a'  the  Airts  " — was  presumably  betwixt  the 
12th  and  22nd  of  June,  while  the  poet  was  in  his 
solitude  on  the  banks  of  the  Nith,  and  his  Bonnie 
Jean  was  at  Mossgiel — to  quote  his  own  words — 
"  regularly  and  constantly  apprenticed  to  my  mother 
and  sister  in  their  dairy  and  other  rural  business," 
for  about  this  time  also  he  represents  his  favorite 
mare,  "Jenny  Geddes, "  as  being  homesick: — 

Jenny,  my  Pegascan  pride, 
Dowie  she  saunters  down  Nithside, 
And  aye  a  westlan'  leuk  she  throws, 
While  tears  hap  o'er  her  auld  brown  nose. 

The  poet,  too,  is  casting  longing  looks  in  the 
"westlan',"  or,  more  strictly  speaking,  "north- 
westlan'  airt, "  and  his  cry  is — 

Of  a'  the  airts  the  win'  can  blaw, 
I  dearly  like  the  west. 

But  the  song  itself : — 

OF  A'  THE  AIRTS. 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw, 

I  dearly  like  the  west  ; 
For  there  the  bonnie  lassie  lives, 

The  lassie  I  lo'e  best ; 
There's  wild  woods  grow,  and  rivers  row, 

And  mony  a  hill  between  ; 
But  day  and  night  my  fancy's  flight 

Is  ever  wi'  my  Jean. 


112  BONNIE  JEAN. 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and  fair  : 
I  see  her  in  the  tunefu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower,  that  springs, 

By  fountain,  .shaw,  or  green  ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  vsings, 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean. " 

That  is  the  song  exactly  as  Burns  wrote  it;  though, 
in  all  the  song-collections,  other  verses  are  added, 
and  even  these  are  differently  phrased.  Some 
editors,  in  bad  taste,  have  printed  "  lo'e "  in  the 
second  line  instead  of  "like,"  and  nearly  all  have 
written — 

Though  wild  woods  grow  and  rivers  row, 
Wi'  mony  a  hill  between. 

With  the  second  double  stanza,  still  greater  liberty 
has  been  taken ;  but,  I  think,  to  the  improvement  of 
the  song.  Let  the  reader  compare  the  above  with 
the  following: — 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flower, 

Sae  lovely,  sweet,  and  fair — 
I  hear  her  voice  in  ilka  bird, 

Wi'  music  charm  the  air ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs. 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green, — 
Nor  yet  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings. 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean. 

The  briefness  of  the  song,  too,  has  tempted  some 
respectable  versifiers  to  make  additions  to  it,  for  the 
sixteen  lines  of  the  text  just  go  once  through  the 
melody.  Mr.  William  Reid,  a  late  bookseller  in 
Glasgow — an  inveterate  song-tinker,  who  tried  his 
hand  on  the  "Lass  o'  Gowrie  "  and  other  popular 
measures — attempted  a  continuation.  But  Reid's 
lines,  though  frequently  printed,  are  never  sung. 
They  are  these : — 


BONNIE   JEAN.  113 

Upon  the  banks  o'  flowing  Clyde 

The  lasses  busk  them  braw  ; 
But  when  their  best  they  ha'e  put  on 

My  Jeanie  dings  them  a'. 
In  hamely  weeds  she  far  exceeds 

The  fairest  o'  the  town — 
Baith  sage  and  gay  confess  it  sae, 

Though  drest  in  russet  gown. 

The  gamesome  lamb,  that  sucks  its  dam, 

Mair  harmless  canna  be  ; 
She  has  nae  faut,  if  sic  ye  ca't, 

Except  her  love  for  me. 
The  sparkling  dew,  o'  clearest  hue, 

Is  like  her  shining  e'en — 
In  shape  and  air,  w^ha  can  compare 

Wi'  my  sweet,  lovely  Jean. 

Mr.  John  Hamilton  of  Edinburgh,  author  of  "  Up 
in  the  Morning  Early,"  next  made  the  attempt,  and 
with  much  more  success.  His  verses,  in  tendernes 
of  feeling  and  beauty  of  imagery,  are  not  inferior  to 
those  of  Burns,  although  they  may  contain  anach- 
ronisms, as  Mr.  Scott  Douglas  not  unreasonably 
avers.  Hamilton's  addition,  which  is  invariably 
sung,  is  as  follows : — 

O  blaw,  ye  westlan'  winds,  blaw  saft, 

Amang  the  leafy  trees — 
Wi'  gentle  gale,  frae  muir  and  dale, 

Bring  hame  tlie  laden  bees  ; 
And  bring  the  lassie  back  to  me 

That's  aye  sae  neat  and  clean  : 
A'e  blink  o'  her  wad  banish  care, 

Sae  lovely  is  my  Jean. 

What  sighs  and  vows,  amang  the  knowes, 

Ha'e  pass'd  atween  us  twa  ! 
How  fain  to  meet,  how  wae  to  part. 

That  day  she  gaed  awa  ! 
The  Powers  aboon  can  only  ken, 

To  whom  the  heart  is  seen. 
That  nane  can  be  sae  dear  to  me, 

As  my  sweet,  lovely  Jean. 


114  BONNIE  JEAN. 

These  verses,  says  Mr.  Scott  Douglas,  are  very 
musical  and  expressive;  but  were,  unfortunately, 
composed  under  the  mistaken  idea  that  the  absence 
of  Jean,  referred  to  in  Bums'  song-,  was  that  of 
Spring,  1786,  when  she  removed  to  Paisley  to  avoid 
him.  On  the  poet's  own  authority,  however,  the 
date  and  the  occasion  of  the  song  are  rendered 
certain,  and,  at  that  time,  instead  of  imploring  the 
west  winds  to  "bring  the  lassie  back"  to  him,  he 
had  only  to  return  to  her ;  and,  moreover,  she  could 
not  come  "back  "  to  Ellisland,  where  she  had  never 
yet  been. 

Notwithstanding  these  anachronisms,  it  is  no 
small  compliment  to  Mr.  Hamilton  that  Burns'  own 
sixteen  lines  are  now  seldom  dissociated  from  his 
imitator's  supplementary  ones.  Cunningham  boldly 
tells  his  readers  that  the  whole  thirty-two  lines  are 
from  Burns'  own  manuscript;  Lockhart  quotes  the 
added  lines  as  the  poet's  own ;  and  Professor  Wilson, 
in  his  famous  "  Essay,"  adopts  Hamilton's  addendum 
as  an  authentic  part  of  the  song.  Its  only  weak  line 
is — 

That's  aye  sae  neat  and  clean — 

which  is  not  poetical  at  all,  and  might  read — 

Wi'  her  twa  witchin'  een — 

which  is  at  once  the  language  of  love  and  poetry, 
and  runs  on  a  line  with  the  rest  of  the  sentiment. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  115 

JEAN  ARMOUR. 


A  CHARACTER  STUDY. 


By  The  Rev.   William  Lowestofft. 


Among  all  the  women  who  crossed  the  path  of 
Robert  Burns,  among-  all  those  whom  he  singled  out 
for  the  bestowal  of  his  affection,  among  all  those  to 
whom  he  poured  out  the  accents  of  love,  no  one 
stands  out  in  bolder  relief  for  having  won  the 
victory  over  his  wayward  heart  than  does  Jean 
Armour.  We  say  this  with  as  full  a  knowledge  of  his 
life  as  more  or  less  constant  and  diligent  study  and 
enquiry  can  give ;  we  say  it  with  as  clear  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  Clarinda  interlude  as  it  seems  the  facts 
warrant  and  with  a  more  or  less  close  study  of  the 
passages  of  which  so  many  women  in  turn  figured 
as  the  heroines.  In  his  relation  with  "the  sex" 
Robert  Burns  was  not  by  any  means  a  model  of  con- 
stancy. He  soon  tired  of  each  succeeding  flame 
and  was  ever  eager  to  bask  in  new  smiles.  Having 
won  a  heart  he  seemed  satisfied  with  victory  and 
desired  to  add  to  his  conquests  and  to  his  reputation 
as  a  gallant.  No  poet  of  whom  we  read,  certainly 
no  Scottish  poet,  had  the  lines  of  his  life  so  often 
crossed  by  feminine  charms,  had  the  events  of  his 
career  so  shaped  that  through  it  all  a  woman  starts 
up  in  one  way  or  another  as  a  controlling  or  degrad- 
ing influence,  and  yet,  when  we  review  that  life 
story,  laying  aside  mere  frivolities  and  gallantries 
and  pi  atonic  friendships  and  paltry  bits  of  romance, 
and    more    or   less   conventional   extravagances   of 


ii6  BONNIE  JEAN. 

demeanor,  we  are  forced  to  believe  that  there  were 
but  two  women  during  the  thirty-seven  years  of  his 
life  who  completely  held  his  heart  and  in  their  re- 
spective spheres  reigned  supreme — the  mother 
whom  he  revered  and  the  wife  he  loved. 

We  say  this,  too,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  his  sins 
against  the  moral  law  and  the  consequences  thereof. 
These  sins  we  cannot  condone  and  the  time  for  ex- 
planation and  consideration  has  passed.  The  green 
grass  has  long  w^aved  over  the  Jenny  Clows  and 
Betty  Parks  and  their  offspring  and  they  have  long 
passed  away  from  the  judgments  of  men.  Nor 
would  we  even  refer  to  them  here  but  for  the  fact 
that  such  acquaintances,  such  intimacies,  had  a  more 
or  less  direct  influence  on  the  heart  of  the  poet,  and 
had  more  or  less  to  do  with  shaping  his  career.  But 
we  do  not  believe  they  gave  him  more  than  a  pass- 
ing thought,  or  had  any  influence  whatever  on  his 
song.  They  undoubtedly  did  not  elevate  his  ideas  of 
human  nature,  especially  female  nature,  nor  did 
they  enhance  his  sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  sex. 
But  he  was  not  foolish  enough  to  believe  from  his 
knowledge  of  evil  that  all  women  were  bad — that  all 
were  Jenny  Clows.  His  knowledge  of  the  weakness 
of  the  bad,  the  frail,  the  fallen,  seemed  rather  to 
increase  his  admiration  for  the  good  and  in  that  cat- 
egory, in  spite  of  what  had  passed,  he  never  failed 
to  place — even  in  the  dreary  days  of  1786 — she  who 
had  trusted  him  to  her  sorrow,  she  who  afterwards 
became  his  acknowledged  and  lawful  wife. 

And  we  also  say  this  with  a  full  study  of  the 
Highland  Mary  mystery — of  the  girl  whom  so  many 
believe  to  be  the  real  heroine  of  Burns's  life,  to  whom 
in  recognition  of  that  sentiment  many  admirers — 
more  or  less  silly — have  erected  a  monument  on  the 
banks  of  the  Clyde.    Many  writers  of  Burns's  life  have 


BONNIE  JEAN.  117 

pretty  fairly  settled  that  Mary  Campbell  was  a  dairy- 
maid at  Coilsfield  and  afterward  a  servant  in  the 
household  of  Gavin  Hamilton,  but  others  say  she 
was  not  and  are  in  doubt^as  to  what  she  really  was, 
Most  of  them  describe  her  as  a  paragon  of  innocent 
virtue,  some,  however,  more  or  less  definately  ex- 
press doubt  on  that  point.  Bunis's  story  is  really  all 
that  we  have  on  which  to  base  our  knowledge  of  the 
girl,  and  that  story  is  so  contradictory  and  so  full  of 
inconsistencies  that  we  would  throw  it  aside  alto- 
gether as  a  myth,  were  it  not  for  the  presence  of  the 
Bible  which  remains  as  a  witness  of  the  actuality  of 
the  love  passages  in  the  graceful  monument  on  the 
banks  of  the  Doon. 

But  take  it  anyway  we  may,  and  we  have  viewed 
the  matter  from  every  conceivable  standpoint,  we 
cannot  regard  the  Highland  Mary  incident  as  any 
other  than  simply  one  of  the  love  passages  in  which 
the  poet  was  engaged  through  his  earlier  life  and 
into  each  of  which  he  threw  himself  with  all  the  in- 
tensity of  his  nature.  He  would  have  given  Mary 
at  the  moment  a  stack  of  Bibles  if  she  had  asked  for 
them  and  he  had  them  to  give,  if  thereby  he  could 
have  proved  the  honesty  of  his  intentions — for  honest 
we  believe  him — for  the  time — to  have  been  in  all 
such  intervals.  We  believe  Mary  very  sincere  in 
her  love,  and  that  she  went  from  Ayrshire  to  her 
parents'  home  to  prepare  for  her  marriage.  We  do 
not  believe  that  ^ny  woman  ever  lived,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Clarinda,  to  whose  heart  the  poet  ever 
made  siege  who  did  not  confess  herself  conquered, 
and  even  Clarinda  was  only  retained  from  giving  her 
hand  and  pledging  her  troth,  by  the  knowledge  that 
the  law  had  set  up  a  barrier  between  them  which 
only  death  could  sever.  We  see  no  reason  for  doubt- 
ing that  Mary  gave  up  her  whole  heart  to  Burns,  but 


ii8  BONNIE  JEAN. 

as  for  him,  judging  by  his  own  record,  she  was  no 
sooner  out  of  his  sight  than  he  turned  to  bask  in  the 
sunshine  of  new  smiles.  Her  sudden  death  brought 
her  memory  back  again  with  irresistible  force,  but  it 
was  in  reality  that  sudden  death  which  made  her 
memory  immortal.  The  songs  in  which  Burns  has 
given  her  fame  did  not  appear  until  long  after, 
when  all  that  was  earthly  in  his  passion  had  been 
purified  by  time,  and  her  memory  had  been  enhanced, 
etherialized,  softened,  and  refined  by  absence,  by  a 
knowledge  that  she  had  passed  from  mortality  and 
taken  on  the  robes  of  immortality.  But  we  cannot 
concede  that  Mary  had  any  real  influence  on  Robert 
Burns;  so  far  as  that  was  concerned  she  was  little 
better  than  a  lay  figure  in  an  artist's  studio — the  lay 
figure  on  which  he  drapes  his  costume  and  experi- 
ments with  positions,  and  we  do  not  doubt  that  the. 
real  figure  which  suggested  the  many  songs — the 
real  inspirer  of  the  lyrics  which  have  made  her  rank 
as  a  heroine  of  Scottish  songs  was  his  own  wife,  the 
one  being  who  gave  him  any  practical  happiness  in 
the  meridian  and  gloaming  of  life,  Jean  Armour. 

On  the  surface  there  is  little  to  tell  of  the  life  of 
"  Bonnie  Jean,"  as  Jean  Armour  will  be  called  until 
the  art  of  love  making  is  forgotten.  She  was  born 
at  Mauchline  in  1765,  was  noted  for  her  good  looks, 
her  shapely  figure  and  sprightly  conversation,  was 
married  to  Robert  Burns,  whether  in  1786  or  1788 
does  not  matter  here,  bore  him  many  children,  sur- 
vived him  in  widowhood  for  thirty-eight  years  and 
died  in  1834  respected  for  her  own  sake,  honored  for 
the  name  she  bore,  and  famous  for  the  songs  which 
had  been  written  in  her  praise. 

Not  much  to  write  about  truly,  not  more  than 
could  be  said  of  millions  of  women,  except  for  the 
last  clause  in  the  above  paragraph,  who  have  lived 


BONNIE  JEAN.  119 

and  died  in  the  land  of  Robert  Burns.  Like  them,  too, 
she  would  have  been  content  to  have  remained  forgot- 
ten after  the  darkness  set  in.  But  the  pre-eminence 
which  he  by  his  genius  bestowed  on  all  his  kith  and 
kin,  aye  even  on  all  in  more  or  less  degree  who 
crossed  his  pathway  or  journeyed  with  him  even  a 
short  distance  along  the  highway  of  life,  has  placed 
her  on  a  pedestal  and  forced  her  into  our  thoughts. 
Her  life  has  been  studied  by  the  enthusiasts  and 
everything  gleaned  concerning  her  outgoings  and 
incomings  which  it  was  possible  for  diligent  enquiry 
— prurient  as  often  as  anything  else — has  been 
placed  before  us  and  we  are  able,  as  a  result  to  get 
some  sort  of  an  idea  of  her  character  and  of  the 
amiable  qualities  of  head  and  heart,  which,  as  well 
as  her  personal  charms,  won  for  her  the  heart  of 
the  greatest  of  Scotia's  bards. 

The  story  of  that  life  is  not  without  deep 
significance  for  women.  Jean  Armour,  somehow 
the  world  does  not  seem  to  take  kindly  to  the  more 
formal  designation  of  Mrs.  Burns,  was  by  no  means 
a  woman  with  a  mission,  she  would  have  shrunk 
with  native  delicacy  from  even  remote  association 
with  the  shrieking  sisterhood — the  short  haired 
women  who  in  the  company  of  long  haired  men  are 
bellowing  about  the  equality  of  the  sexes  and  trying 
to  bring  about  some  new  sort  of  an  era — all  in  five 
minutes — on  the  face  of  the  globe.  But  unconsciously 
she  had  a  mission,  and  unconsciously  her  memory 
pleads  in  one  respect  at  least  for  equality  for  her 
sisters  with  the  sterner  sex. 

In  the  usual  acceptance  of  the  world  Jean  '*  fell" 
before  any  form  of  marriage  ceremony  passed  be- 
tween her  and  the  poet.  According  to  the  general 
theory  this  involved  her  moral  ruin,  and  upset  any 
idea  that  might  be  entertained  of  her  possessing  any 


120  BONNIE  JEAN. 

regard  for  viitue,  of  her  being  aught  but  a  wanton. 
The  certificate  whicli  she  obtained  from  her  lover,  a 
sort  of  acknowledgment  of  her  as  his  wife,  did  not 
alter  the  state  of  the  case  at  all  or  even  atone  for  the 
sin.  Under  such  circumstances  a  young  woman 
generally  finds  that  her  entire  character  is  gone,  her 
future  life  blasted,  and  the  finger  of  levity  or  scorn 
is  pointed  at  her,  while  the  arm  of  the  libertine  is 
ever  ready  to  encircle  her  and  draw  her  still  further 
from  the  moral  highway.  Whoever  has  read — and 
who  has  not  ? — Hawthorne's  magnificent  study  "The 
Scarlet  Letter  "  can  understand  readily  all  that  we 
mean,  all  that  we  imply  in  these  lines.  The  world 
looked  darkly  at  her;  even  her  own  people  rebelled 
against  her  unjustly  and  her  prudish  sisters  cast  re- 
proachful glances  at  her  as  she  passed.  Defiantly 
the  author  of  her  misfortune  wrote  about  the  same 
time : 

Ye  high  exalted,  virtuous  dames 

Ty'd  up  in  godly  laces, 
Before  ye  gie  poor  Frailty  names 

Suppose  a  change  of  places, 
A  dear-lov'd  lad,  convenience  snug 

A  treacherous  inclination, 
But  let  me  whisper  in  your  lug 

Ye're  ailbins  nae  temptation. 

Then  gently^scan  your  brother  man, 

vStill  gentler  sister  woman  ; 
'  Tho'  they  may  gang  a  kennin'  wrang 

To  step  aside  is  human, 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark 

The  moving  why  they  do  it, 
And  just  as  lanely  can  ye  mark 

How  far  perhaps  they  rue  it. 

It  is  commonly  argued,  and  whether  argued  or  not 
it  is  commonly  held,  that  when  a  woman  * '  makes  a 
slip  "  as  the  saying  goes — she  is  bound  to  fall  beyond 


BONNIE  JEAN.  121 

hope  of  recovery.  Le^rally  Jean  Armour  fell.  vShe 
broke  the  laws  of  both  kirk  and  state,  but  who  with 
a  knovviedg-e  of  her  life  can  ever  accuse  her  of  being 
an  immoral  woman,  of  being  aught  Ijut  a  pure, 
trusting,  loving  heart.  Did  she  even  under  the  cir- 
cumstances violate  a  moral  law  ?  That  is  a  question 
we  have  often  asked  ourselves  and  been  unable  to 
clearly  answer  in  the  atlfirmative. 

Be  it  understood  we  are  not  condoning  or  defend- 
ing wantonness  or  licentiousness.  We  do  not  be- 
lieve there  is  a  miore  loathsome  sight  in  the  world 
than  a  wanton,  licentious  woman,  but  who  with  a 
knowledge  of  Jean  Armour's  life  can  place  such 
accusations  at  her  door.  Nay,  we  go  further  in  our 
defence  of  her  position  in  the  evil  days  of  1786  and 
say  that  we  believe  that  morally  she  never  fell  at  all 
but  that,  trusting  to  her  chosen  lover,  she  accepted 
his  promises,  his  protestations,  blindl3^and  impassion- 
ately,  and  that  while  she  broke  the  laws  by  which 
society  is  regulated,  she  broke  them  not  because  she 
was  a  wanton,  but  because  as  a  woman  with  a  wooer 
like  Robert  Bums  she  could  not  help  herself. 

So  we  take  it  that  a  mission  might  be  cut  out  for 
Jean  Armour  and  that  mission  might  be  stated  to  be 
an  equality  of  the  sexes  as  regards  the  condonation  of 
moral  wrongs.  Her  long,  and  but  for  this  incident 
morally  blameless  life,  her  fidelity  to  her  husband — 
a  fidelity  which  was  not  reciprocal  and  of  v/hich  the 
*' misfortune  "  of  Annie  Park  was,  we  fear  only  one 
instance.  Remember  in  this  we  are  not  trying  to 
show  the  poet's  guilt — there  is  no  use  considering  this 
— it  is  all  yjast  and  gone — but  we  inerely  bring  up  a 
perfectly  reliable  and  acknowledged  instance  to  prove 
that  Jean  preserved  the  moral  amenities  when  her 
own  husband  showed,  without  any  attempt  appar- 
ently at  concealment,   that  the  vows  of  matriraon}^ 


122  BONNIE  JEAN. 

did  not  circumscribe  his  conduct  or  be  to  him  a 
moral  shield.  But  Jean  was  loyal  to  Burns  from  the 
day  vshe  met  him  first,  whether  when  bleaching  claes 
on  the  green  at  Mauchline  or  at  a  penny  wedding, 
imtil  her  body  was  laid  beside  his  in  the  mausoleum 
which  his  countrymen,  his  admirers,  had  erected  in 
auld  St.  Michael's  Churchyard  to  guard  his  honored 
dust. 

Jean  Armour  loved  the  poet  from  the  first  with  all 
the  love  which  a  woman  can  give  a  man,  during 
their  married  life  at  Ellisland  and  in  "the  Dark 
Days  of  Dumfries."  In  spite  of  trials  and  offences 
not  one  or  two,  but  oft  repeated,  offences  which 
would  try,  which  have  tried  and  broken,  the  temper, 
the  fidelity,  the  love,  even  the  character  of  thousands 
of  women,  she  still  held  to  her  love,  condoned  his 
offenses,  thought  as  lightly  as  was  possible  over  his 
transgressions  and  did  what  she  could  to  "make  a 
happy  fireside  clime."  So  far  as  we  have  read  no 
word  of  reproach  ever  escaped  her  lips,  she  did  not 
storm,  or  rave,  at  faults  or  follies,  at  the  idea  of 
facing  pov^erty,  at  seeing  the  family  fortunes  steadily 
going  down,  nor  did  she  lose  heart  when  it  was  seen 
that  the  end  was  surel}^  coming  and  her  husband  was 
entering  on  that  contest  in  which  all  must  surrender 
— the  contest  with  the  grim  conqueror.  Her  love, 
her  faith,  in  his  genuine  goodness  never  wavered  and 
when  critics  and  biographers  and  literary  hyenas  of  all 
sorts  were  hounding  his  memory,  raking  up  all  the 
gossip — vile  and  paltry  and  generally  exaggerated  if 
not  altogether  untrue — which  the  "clash"  of  a  country 
town  can  furnish,  her  voice  was  never  uttered  but 
in  praise,  and  his  conduct  as  a  husband  and  father 
elicited  from  her  nothing  but  words  of  grateful 
commendation.  She  understood  her  husband  better 
than  did  the  critics  and  hvenas  and  knew^  what  he  had 


BONNIE  JEAN.  123 

to  contend  agdinst — physically  and  mentally,  better 
than  they  and  was  able  to  give  a  clearer  opinion  as 
to  his  moral  worth.  She  understood  clearer  than 
they  the  full  import  of  the  bard's  lines  in  the  poem 
from  which  we  have  already  quoted : 

"  Who  made  the  heart,  'tis  He  alone 

Decidedly  can  try  us  ; 
He  knows  each  chord  its  various  tone, 

Each  spring  its  various  bias. 
Then  at  the  balance  let's  be  mute 

We  never  can  adjust  it, 
What's  done  we  partly  may  compute, 

But  know  not  what's  resisted." 

Then  her  long  blameless  widowhood,  her  humble 
yet  wholly  successful  effort  to  bring  up  her  family 
so  that  they  might  make  their  way  in  the  world  to 
higher  social  spheres  than  that  in  w^hich  she  had 
moved,  her  regard  for  the  reputation  of  the  bard, 
her  constant  work  of  charity,  her  religious  faith,  all 
point  to  her  as  a  woman  in  whom  the  beauty  of  the 
moral  law  was  conspicuous.  She  observed  all  the 
proprieties  of  life,  she  circumscribed  her  conduct  so 
that  not  a  whisper  could  be  raised  even  by  envy — 
and  all  little  country  towms  are  full  of  that — and  she 
earned,  well  earned,  the  reputation  of  being  a  good 
woman,  a  lovable  woman,  a  charitable  woman,  one 
who  was  constantly,  daily,  engaged  in  laying  up 
treasures  in  heaven. 

And  yet,  once,  she  had  what  the  world  called 
fallen,  and  the  finger  of  scorn  was  pointed  at  her  for 
her  offence.  Surely  if  an  erring  woman  desiies  to 
retain  hope,  desires  to  understand  how  it  is  possible 
to  outlive  a  fault,  how  it  is  possible  for  a  woman  to 
be  led  into  folly  and  yet  retain  her  own  self  respect 
and  by  her  own  behavior  make  even  the  world  con- 
done or  forget  her  error,  she  can  find  not  only  an  ex- 


124  BONNIE  JEAN. 

ample,  but  an  influence  in  thinking  over  the  career 
of  Bonnie  Jean  and  recalling  the  glorious  golden 
sunset  of  life  after  a  gloomy  spring  time.  Rightl)^ 
understood,  we  take  it,  Jean  Armour,  while  not  a 
woman  with  a  mission,  did  actually  perform  a  mis- 
sion and  left  a  legacy  to  her  sisters,  as  important,  as 
full  of  hope,  as  comforting  in  its  way  as  that  which 
her  gifted  husband  left  to  mankind. 

There  is  another  phase  in  which  the  career  of 
Jean  Armour  is  of  deep  interest  and  that  is  in  its 
unconscious  intellectual  grovvth.  In  this  respect  in 
fact,  she  is  a  representative  type  of  her  country- 
women in  her  own  rank  of  life  and  a  type  which  still 
exists  even  although  education  is  much  more  thorough 
a  factor  in  the  county  districts  of  Scotland  than  it 
was  in  her  girlhood  days.  Practically  she  was  un- 
educated. She  could  read  a  little,  very  little.  It  is 
doubtful  if  vShe  could  write.  She  was  not,  in  early 
life  at  all  events,  at  all  fond  even  of  what  we  call 
improving  the  mind.  Yet  she  had  a  retentive  mem- 
ory, a  sweet  voice,  a  native  shrewdness  and  a  degree 
of  quick-wittedness  which  enabled  her  to  readily 
understand  whatever  subject  was  discussed  in  her 
presence  and  to  appreciate  her  own  shortcoming. 
She  knew  all  the  legends  of  the  countr3^side  in  which 
she  had  her  home,  she.  was  aquainted  with  the  words 
and  airs  of  every  scrap  of  song  and  ballad  which 
floated  around  the  village,  and  her  ability  as  a 
dancer  gave  her  a  carriage  and  a  presence  which,  in 
addition  to  her  good  looks,  captured  more  hearts 
than  that  of  Rob  Mossgiel.  The  manufacture  of 
rhyme,  the  technicalities  of  feet  and  measure  were 
to  her  mysteries  as  profound,  if  not  more  so  than 
those  of  a  mason's  lodge,  and  yet  when  her  husband 
wanted  the  voice  of  an  honest  critic  over  some  piece 
of  literary  work  he  submitted  the  production  to  her 


BONNIE  JEAN.  125 

judgment  and  invariably  profited  b)^  it.  Her  pract- 
ical ideas  were  a  good  antidote  to  his  theoretical 
notions.  He  said  himself  "  If  I  have  not  got  polite 
tattle,  modish  manners  and  fashionable  dress,  I  am 
not  sickened  and  disgusted  with  the  multiform  curse 
of  boarding  school  affectation.  I  have  got  the  hand- 
somest figure,  the  sweetest  temper,  the  soundest 
constitution  and  the  kindest  heart  in  the  country." 

Doubtless  from  the  time  she  went  to  Ellisland  and 
became  mistress  of  her  own  home  Jean's  character 
mellowed,  her  knowledge  of  the  world  around  her 
widened  and  her  opportunities  for  mental  improve- 
ment increased  and  she  took  full  advantage  of  her 
position.  We  do  not  learn  that  she  devoted  herself  to 
books,  indeed  we  have  evidence  that  her  one  book 
was  the  Bible,  with  now  and  then,  perhaps,  a  glance 
through  some  volume  bearing  her  husband's  name. 
But  most  of  his  songs  she  knew^  by  heart  and  when 
she  sung  them,  or  crooned  them  over  as  she  went 
about  her  household  duties  she  delighted  his  heart 
more  than  though  her  voice  had  been  that  of  the 
most  accomplished  prima  donna,  because,  somehow, 
in  her  singing  she  evolved  the  very  sentiment,  the 
pith,  the  full  meaning  of  the  song. 

To  the  end  of  her  career,  Jean  Armour  owned 
nothing  intellectually  to  books,  yet  who  would,  even 
in  these  modern  days  describe  her  as  an  ignorant 
woman.  Her  tact  enabled  her  to  conceal  her  short- 
comings, her  manner  threw  in  the  background  any 
mistake  in  speech  she  might  make,  any  misunder- 
standing of  a  particular  subject,  and  any  little  break 
of  etiquette  of  which  she  might  be  guilty.  No  one 
of  course  could  be  associated  with  Burns  and  not 
feel  the  influence  of  his  genius,  and  wx  almost  fancy 
that  Jean  wdth  a  woman's  adaptability  soon  acquired 
his  sense  of  taste  in  poetry,  his  aspirations  for  good 


126  BONNIE  JEAN. 

— and  rejected  with  her  liner  instincts  and  purer  ideas 
all  that  was  gross  and  earthl3^  Her  retentive  mem- 
ory gave  her  the  mastery  of  any  subject  which 
was  once  discussed  in  her  presence,  her  clear  per- 
ception of  right  and  wrong  led  her  to  a  just  de- 
cision on  any  topic  and  her  shrewd  common  sense 
supplied  the  rest. 

During  her  long  vv^idowhood  her  home  was  invaded 
by  inquisitive  strangers  of  all  sorts,  some  on  errands 
which  commanded  her  sympathy,  others  with  mis- 
sions which,  as  they  related  to  her  husband's  memory 
required  all  her  tact,  and  others  whose  only  purpose 
was  idle  curiosity  and  who  filled  her  with  contempt 
— contempt  which  however  she  rarely  showed. 
These  visitors  were  of  all  classes  and  conditions  of 
men  and  women,  and  their  conversation  naturally 
ranged  from  technical  to  commonplace,  and  yet  we 
cannot  recall  one  instance  when  a  visitor  has  left  on 
record  any  impressisn  that  he  regarded  Jean  Armour 
as  an  ignorant  woman.  She  met  her  visitors  on 
their  own  level,  apparently  without  effort,  without 
affectation,  and  charmed  them  all.  The  Marchioness 
of  Hastings,  not  only  was  delighted  with  her,  but 
told  her  son  to  remember  the  interview  with  Mrs. 
Burns  as  an  honor, — which  he  did.  The  landed 
gentry  were  interested  in  her  and  she  met  them  on 
an  even  footing,  whether  they  came  to  her  home  or 
she  met  them  accidently  as  she  moved  through  the 
streets  of  Dumfries.  Every  clergyman  in  the  town 
held  her  in  the  highest  esteem  and  none  regarded 
her  as  a  woman  whose  education  had  been  neglected 
or  one  to  whom  it  was  necessary  to  "speak  down  to 
her  level "  as  the  professional  phrase  goes.  Of  her 
husband  she  spoke  without  extravagance,  defending 
his  memory  in  her  quiet  but  effective  way  from  its 
detractors  great  and  small;  of  her  family  she  was 


BONNIE  JEAN.  127 

proud  and  she  saw  them — or  some  of  them — make 
their  way  in  the  world  in  a  manner  that  would  have  de- 
lighted their  father — winning  praises  on  all  sides  for 
their  good  qualities,  and  giving  her  substantial 
evidence  of  their  reverence  and  their  love. 

A  country  girl  without  book  learning,  a  widowed 
matron,  mingling  we  might  say  in  all  classes  and 
"keeping  up  her  own  end  "  in  any  conversation,  in 
any  society,  can  we  consider  the  widow  of  Robert 
Burns  an  ignorant  woman  ?  Surely  not.  Her  life 
shows  that  even  the  three  r's  are,  after  all  but  a 
foundation,  and  that  with  native  wit,  by  taking  ad- 
vantage of  all  other  opportunities,  a  superstructure 
of  knowledge  may  be  raised  without  their  aid.  True 
the  superstructure  is  not. so  solid  as  it  might  be  with 
their  help ;  true,  the  absence  of  their  aid  is  to  be  ever 
deplored,  but  if  we  can  learn  anything  from  Jean 
Armour's  career  it  is  that  their  aid  is  not  indispens- 
able to  the  sphere  in  which  the  poet's  wife,  in  poverty 
or  affluence,  confined  herself — that  of  a  busy,  kindly 
coimtry  housewife.  She  would  not  have  been  any 
better  for  having  had  the  foundation,  she  might  with 
it  and  reached  into  realms  of  which  she  had  no  ken, 
but  she  supplied  their  want  by  her  own  wit  and 
probably  when  she  died  had  a  fund  of  knowledge 
equal  to  any  woman  of  her  class  in  the  three 
kingdoms. 

At  times  we  hear  men  being  rated  as  uneducated 
if  they  have  not  passed,  no  matter  how  slovenly, 
through  a  college  curriculum,  and  a  young  woman 
is  still  spoken  of  as  uneducated  if  she  cannot  work 
out  a  problem  of  Euclid  or  construe  a  few  lines 
from  Thucydides.  To  be  "educated"  she  must 
speak  French — or  be  able  to  make  a  bluff  at  it — turn 
out  wonderful  effects  in  ribbon  and  lace  and  paint — 
heaven  save  the  mark — jars  and  jugs  and  crockery 


128  BONNIE  JEAN. 

of  all  sorts.  No  matter  if  the  man  thus  blessed 
knows  at  the  end  of  his  career  little  more  than  to 
kick  a  football,  or  the  girl  barely  enough  to  cement 
a  bit  of  crystal.  They  are  "educated."  However, 
a  new  era  is  dawning  and  education — as  simply  a 
preparation  for  life  is  being  better  understood  and 
the  boy  or  girl  graduating  from  the  Granmiar  school, 
if  they  but  use  the  foundation  then  acquired  aright 
can  force  the  world  to  acknowledge  them  as  being 
educated  men  and  women. 

So  Jean  Armour,  with  no  deeper  foundation  than 
that  which  permitted  her  in  early  life  to  read  her 
Bible,  passed  through  her  long  career  not  only  with- 
out calling  attention  to  her  lack  of  "  book  learning  " 
but  with  the  reputation  for  being  the  very  reverse  of 
ignorant.  We  do  not  despise  education,  far  from  it, 
but  the  story  of  Jean  Armour  illustrates  one  fact 
often — invariably — overlooked — that  primary  educa- 
tion is  simply  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end,  can 
be  reached  by  the  exercise  of  that  art,  shrewdness, 
and  natural  curiosity  which  are  our  heritage  from 
nature. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  129 

TO  ROBERT  BURNS. 


By  Dr.   Benjamin  F.   Leggett. 


O  peasant  Bard  whose  sweet  voice  stirs 

The  heather  of  the  hills; 
How  far  and  wide  thy  song  has  flown — 

How  every  measure  thrills ! 

Thy  name  is  dear  to  Scotia's  land, 

She  will  not  let  it  die : 
The  daisy  prints  it  on  the  ground, — 

The  laverock  on  the  sky. 

The  cottar  in  his  ingle-neuk, 

The  gowan  on  the  brae, 
They  keep  thy  fame  so  tenderly 

It  cannot  pass  away. 

Not  less  of  tender  love  for  thee, 
Holds  every  heart  that  turns, 

To  greet,  with  loyal  homage  due, 
Thy  Bonnie  Jean, — O  Burns! 

Her  eyes  for  thee  held  starry  hope 
To  cheer  thy  darkest  dream, — 

With  light  she  filled  thy  humble  home- 
The  light  of  love  supreme. 

Thou  hast  no  need  of  measured  line 
To  keep  thy  memory  green ; — 

One  sang  for  loyal  womanhood — 
Thy  guid  wife— Bonnie  Jean ! 


[30  BONNIE  JEAN. 

THE  POET  AND   HIS  WIFE. 


By  Rev.   Arthur  John  Lockhart. 
*'  Pastor  Felix." 


As  we  ask  again  for  the  singing  of  some  old  song, 
which  has  gathered  to  its  perfect  heart  the  loves  and 
joys  and  sorrows  of  a  hundred  generations;  or,  as  we 
listen  again  to  the  telling  of  some  sweet  story  that 
makes  its  unchanging  appeal  to  our  affections, 
though  rehearsed  a  thousand  times,  while  the  familiar 
recital  ''wearies  not  ever;" — so  we  are  never  tired 
of  listening  to  the  romantic,  yet  deeply-human,  his- 
tory of  Robert  Burns, — who,  in  the  heart's  matters, 
is  ''all  mankind's  epitome."  Currie  may  tell  it,  and 
we  are  no  less  ready  to  listen  to  Cunningham ;  Lock- 
hart's  recital  but  whets  our  appetite  for  Carlyle ;  we 
rise  up  from  Professor  Nichol  or  Robert  Chambers  to 
sit  down  expectant  and  eager  when  the  next  one  is 
ready  to  tell  the  story  in  his  own  way.  The  spirits 
of  envy  and  disapprobation  seem  half  disarmed; 
and  we  grudge  our  praise  no  more  than  we  do  our 
smiles  when  some  lovely  child  has  come  within  the 
sphere  of  our  vision. 

Burns  was  more  than  a  poet  potentially,  but  one 
by  actual  and  noble  accomplishment,  before  he  met 
the  woman  of  whom  he  could  say, — "my  Jean," — 
the  companion  of  his  few  bitter  years — the  drop  of 
wine  and  honey  in  his  gall ;  but  Scotland  and  the 
world  did  not  yet  know  it, — only  the  little  world  of 
his  intimates  at  Mossgiel,at  Mauchline  and  Tarbolton. 
The  buds  of  song  had  been  folded  in  the  babe  at 
Alloway,  but  they  were  now  buds  no  longer.  The 
wild  rose  hedges  on  Doon's  green  banks  are  not  more 


BONNIE  JEAN.  131 

full  of  birds  and  blossoms  in  their  time  than  was 
his  heart  with  broad-blown  melodies;  and  some  of 
the  sweetest  the  world  will  not  let  die  had  already 
been  scrawled  by  that  heavy  hand,  furtively  and 
hastily,  in  that  rough  garret  at  Lochlea,  and  hidden 
in  the  deal  desk.  He  was  not  like  some  of  us,  who 
have  to  sit  on  a  green  bank  by  a  rimning  stream  and 
dream  we  are  poets, — never  ceasing  to  wish  we  could 
be,  and  trying  again  and  again  to  persuade  ourselves 
and  the  world  that  we  are,  while  the  world  will  not 
heed  us,  and,  for  the  most  part,  we  doubt  ourselves. 
He  rose  up,  half  in  a  maze  of  wonder,  shook  his 
locks,  and  without  speculation,  put  forth  power. 
The  harp  of  Scotland  was  not  hung  up  out  of  his 
reach ;  and  when  he  took  it  down  he  did  not  pick  a 
random  chord  with  hap-hazard  fingers,  but  swept 
them  all  like  the  master  he  was ;  the  listeners  were 
all  thrilled  as  he  plucked  a  living  soul  out  of  every 
wire.  With  what  grace  Raphael  painted  and  Moz- 
art composed,  with  the  like  grace  Burns  gave  us  his 
memorable  poesy.  Long  ago  he  had  tasted  love, 
and  knew  its  sweetness  and  its  sharpness,  its  power 
to  "wreck  his  peace,"  and  to  renew  its  enchantment, 
as  charmer  after  charmer  passed  before  him.  Love 
and  music  consented  together  with  him,  and  the 
genius  of  his  life  appeared  in  company  with  "lovely 
Nell,"  and  setting  suns,  and  autumnal  moonlight  in 
the  barley-field. 

Jean  Armour  rose,  a  star  above  the  cloudy  days  at 
Mossgiel;  and,  though  she  disappeared  again  for  a 
season,  she  emerged  low  on  the  horizon  of  home, 
where  she  lingered ;  and  only  by  the  wrack  of  death 
that  enveloped  him  was  he  ever  again  bereaved  of 
her  presence.  Let  us  recur  to  the  pleasant  story  of 
their  first  meeting.  A  Scottish  merry-making,  as 
the  poet  tells  us,  was  often  the  scene  where  that  soft 


132  .  BONNIE  JEAN. 

flame,  which  may  burn  well  or  ill,  has  its  beginning-. 
It  was  at  such  a  one,  when  Mauchline  fair  was  held, 
that  the  die  was  cast  for  him.  On  the  race  day  the 
house  of  entertainment  became  an  open  court  of 
pleasure,  and  he  who  would  freely  came  w4th  his 
favorite  lass,  without  cost,  withal, — unless  it  be  the 
cost  of  his  heart,  and  a  penny  contribution  to  the 
fiddler.  Burns  came  that  day,  with  his  companion, 
who  hung  not  on  his  arm,  but  ran  at  his  heels. 
When  I  read  Joanna  Baillie's  song, — 

**  Saw  ye  Johnnie  comin'  ?  said  she  ; 

"  Saw  ye  Johnnie  comin'  ? 
Wi'  his  blue  bonnet  on  his  head 

And  his  doggie  rinnin', — 

I  think  of  lonesome  Robin,  with  his  dumb  and  over- 
fond  companion.  But  Jean  was  there,  with  eyes 
already  bent  upon  him,  and  ears  quickened  at  his 
words.  Though  old  father  Armour  will  listen  un- 
moved to  the  song's  petition — 

"  Fee  him,  faither,  fee  him," 

yet  the  heart  of  a  woman  goeth  whither  it  will,  and, 
while  her  lips  protest,  her  look  surrenders.  Robert's 
dog  at  his  heels  through  the  round  of  every  dance, 
became  the  occasion  of  some  mirthful  glances  and 
some  poking  of  fun  at  the  poet,  to  whose  proud 
spirit  even  *such  light  banter  was  never  very  agree- 
able. But  he,  who  was  never  behindhand  with  his 
rejoinder,  expressed  a  wish  that  he  could  find  in  some 
lassie  his  dog's  peer  in  affectionate  fidelity, — a  wish 
Jean  overheard,  and  which  in  her  heart,  perhaps 
at  a  later  time,  she  determined  to  gratify. 

If  there  is  a  romantic  attractiveness  in  the  story 
of  the  poet's  meeting  with  Highland  Mary  on  that 


BONNIE  JEAN.  133 

blisvsful  day  in  Montgomerie's  woods, — an  attractive- 
ness like  that  of  the  old  ballad,  made  we  know  not 
by  whom, — 

' '  When  shaws  beene  slieene,  and  shradds  full  fayre, 
And  leeves  both  large  and  longe  ; — 

there  is  likewise  a  beguiling-  touch  of  homely  poetry, 
befitting  Jean  Armour's  character,  in  his  next  meet- 
ing with  her,  only  a  day  or  two  after  the  evening  at 
the  inn  at  Mauchline,  where — 

* '  To  the  trembling  string 
The  dance  gaed  thro'  the  lighted  ha'  ;" 

and  where,  though  we  are  told  she  did  not  join  with 
him,  we  would  not  dare  to  pronounce  her  averse  to 
it.  The  summer  air  breathed  on  her  sweet  cheek  as 
she  stood  on  the  green  where  her  linen  lay  bleach- 
ing, and  the  summer  sunlight  fell  on  her  fine  brow 
and  fair  locks,  when  along  came  Robin  from  the 
riverside,  gun  in  hand, — to  find  game  no  such 
weapon  could  bring  dov/n.  The  hare,  and  the 
mousie,  and  the  water-fowl  on  Loch  Turit,  having 
nothing  to  fear,  the  lassies,  that  may  be  slain  by 
arrows  from  the  bow  of  his  eyes,  may  beware 
accordingly.  If  Robert  is  in  dowie  mood  he  sud- 
denl)^  gladdens  at  the  sight  of  the  sonsie  brunette, 
and  thanks  his  dog  for  a  confab,  and  a  chance  to 
stand  at  gaze.  Jean  is  not  inclined  to  allow  dirty 
tracks  on  her  clean  Tinen,  and  is  petulant  as  any  nice 
house-body  might  be  at  the  prospect  of  such  defile- 
ment. So  doggie  gets  a  stone  hurled  at  his  head, 
and  his  owner  hears  a  peremptory  summons  to  call 
him  off.  But  when  the  poet  draws  near,  and  she 
comes  under  the  spell  of  that  tongue  so  like  "a 
silver  lute,"  her  look  and  tone  soften,  and  she  slyly 
asks  him  if  yet  he  had  found  a  lass   to  love   him. 


134  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Then,  I  can  think,  these  words  had  pathos :  ' '  Las- 
sie, if  ye  thocht  ocht  o'  me,  ye  wadna  hurt  my  dog-." 
Jean's  unspoken  comment, — "I  wadna  think  much  o' 
you,  at  onyrate," — must  have  belied  her  heart.  It 
was  the  hasty  defiance  from  the  commander  of  a 
poorly  garrisoned  fortress  on  the  evening  before 
surrender. 

Now  soon  can  that  hopeful  and  gratified  lover 
break  out  in  song  over  the  daughter  of  the  master 
mason  of  Mauchline, — 

"  A  dancin',  sweet,  young  handsome  queen 
Of  guiless  heart. ' ' 

Alas,  for  Jean !  who  surrendered  too  easily,  and  re- 
turned the  poet's  love  with  too  much  abandon ;  better 
had  she  been  frugal,  where  he  was  so  lavish,  to  re- 
serve her  gifts.  Too  soon  for  both  of  them  did 
*'  sweet  affection  prove  the  spring  of  woe."  In  brief 
time  the  lassie  lets  tears  fall  upon  her  pillow,  and 
Robin  has  a  secret  in  his  breast  he  "  daurna  tell  to 
ony," — nay,  will  not  even  venture  to  whisper  to  the 
muse,  so  ready  to  condone  our  faults  and  compas- 
sionate our  sorrows.  But  the  day  of  revealment 
must  come,  and  the  blush  bum  the  cheek  of  mother 
and  sister,  over  at  Mossgiel.  He  thinks  of  the  woe 
that  waits  on  Jean,  of  the  dismay  of  her  family,  and 
of  the  world's  pointed  finger.  Poor  bard!  hardly 
beset  by  the  nemesis  of  his  own  seven-times  heated 
passions,  he  makes  the  best  reparation  he  can.  He 
is  not  base  to  desert  her  whom  still  he  loves,  nor  to 
cast  off  the  babe  whose  coming  brings  dishonor,  but 
is  ready  with  a  written  testimonial  that  she  is  his 
wedded  wife,  though  the  marriage  be  "secret  and 
irregular."  Whether  the  blessing  or  banning  of 
church  and  society  be  his,  he  is  ready  to  claim  her 
as  his  own,  and  shield  her  from  scorn  and  malediction. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  135 

But  a  sad  surprise  awaits  him.  The  sturdy  mason 
of  Mauchline,  who  is  not  highly  gifted  with  pity  or 
magnanimity,  peremtorily  excludes  him.  He  will 
accept  the  shame  he  has  entailed,  if  it  must  be,  but 
he  will  by  no  means  accept  him  to  be  a  son-in-law. 
The  canny,  prudent  man,  who  looks  well  to  the 
honor  of  his  family,  is  roused  at  last.  There  is  a 
stormy  scene  in  the  house,  and  he  is  white  with  rage. 
In  his  fury  he  denounced  "the  rake-helly  Burns," — 
of  whom  he  wanted  nothing  but  the  chance  to  lay 
hands  on  him, — and  demanded  that  his  daughter  re- 
linquish him  forever.  Scorn,  contempt  and  indigna- 
tion made  the  sorrowing  man  their  target.  Why 
was  such  a  villain  permitted  to  cumber  the  earth! 
So  was  the  poet  pursued, — "skulking,"  as  he  de- 
clares, day  after  day,  "from  covert  to  covert,  under 
the  terrors  of  a  jail,"  while 

"  Hungry  ruin  had  him  in  the  wind." 

The  righteousness  of  men  in  Scotland  once  sent 
them  to  "the  munitions  of  rocks,"  with  the  sword 
of  Claverhouse  behind  them ;  but  now  Caledon's 
sweetest  singer,  who,  like  another  hill-hunted  min- 
strel, had  reason  to  cry. — "  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O, 
Lord,"  is  driven  in  the  tracks  of  the  Cameronians, 
and  seeks  refuge  in  Grampian  glens  from  the  pursu- 
ing sheriff.  As  for  Armour,  he  can  still  care  for  his 
daughter.  He  bids  her  burn  to  ashes  the  precious 
paper  that  might  show  Burns  to  have  any  legal  claim 
upon  her.  So  easy-hearted  Jean  submits,  is  with- 
drawn within  the  privacy  of  home,  while  Burns  has 
reason  to  suppose  the  gate  so  firmly  barred  he  may 
come  to  her  no  more. 

Here,  was  it  a  ray  of  heavenly  light,  or  flame  of 
earthly  passion,  that  shot  across  the  background  of 
this    accumulated    shadow  and  disorder,  in  the  ro- 


136  BONNIE  JEAN. 

mantic  episode  of  Highland  Mary  ?  We  cannot 
pause  to  trace  the  event,  to  delineate  her  features, 
vaguely  seen,  to  reconcile  what  is  perhaps  the  irrecon- 
cilable, so  as,  on  the  moral  basis  of  society,  to  justify 
her  or  her  lover.  Enough  to  affirm,  it  was  an  event 
of  which  poetry  could  be  made;  and,  whatever  she 
was  in  sober  fact,  we  see  her  only  through  the  misty 
gold  of  song;  for,  in  the  haunted  region  where  the 
poet's  fancy  has  placed  her,  consecrated  by  his 
yearning,  adoring,  affectionate  regret,  she  is  forever 
beautiful  and  fair,  beyond  earth  and  time  and  the 
touch  of  contamination. 

Mary  being  gone,  Jean  snatched  from  him,  and 
with  the  scourge  of  society  at  his  back,  the  unhappy 
bard  meditates  flight  from  his  native  country.  He 
craves  the  remembrance  of  his  companions  at  Tar- 
bolton, — 

"  Dear  brethren  of  the  mystic  tie," — 

when  he  is  afar.  He  goes  over  the  moors  at  even- 
ing, singing  his  farewell  song  to  Caledonia,  in 
muvsical  memory, 

"  Pursuing  past  unhappy  loves." 

Already  a  tossing  world  of  waters  is  in  his  eye,  and 
the  doom  of  that  "fatal,  deadly  shore," — which, 
please  Heaven,  he  shall  never  see!  Fancy  Robert 
Bums,  the  Poet  of  Freedom,  a  slave-driver  at  the 
line!  If  Moore's  soul  was  vexed  by  the  lazy  Ber- 
mudian  solitude,  what  uneasy  soul  will  fret  itself 
away  from  Jamaica,  should  he  ever  live  to  reach  it! 
Let  vsuch  a  business,  in  such  a  climate,  be  delegated 
to  Mr.  M'Lehose;  and  Burns  will  be  better  off  rid- 
ing over  Ayrshire  hills  and  Gal  w^ay  moors,  *'  search- 
ing auld  wives'  barrels."  His  heart,  at  least,  is  at 
home.     We  kiss  aofain  the  hand  of  Fate — dealer  of 


BONNIE   JEAN.  137 

so  many  untoward  things — and  bless  the  propriety 
of  that  combination  of  circumstances  which  saved 
him  from  so  palpable  an  absurdity. 

But  hov/  near  he  came  to  taking  the  step!  He 
went  so  far  as  to  engage  his  passage  in  the  steerage 
of  a  vessel  soon  to  leave  the  Clyde.  But  before  he 
can  do  this  he  must  be  "master  of  nine  guineas." 
And  where  shall  he  get  "nine  guineas  ?"  Poetry  is 
sometimes  a  golden  lode,  but  not  always.  But 
Burns  has  friends,  who  advise  him  to  collect  and 
publish  his  poems,  and  who  will  subscribe  liberally; 
so  "Wee  Johnnie"  of  Kilmarnock  is  engaged  to 
print  six  hundred  precious  copies,  that  with  the  prod- 
uct thereof  Scotland's  greatest  poet  may  be  able  to 
go  and  bury  himself!  But  that  book  became  the 
step-ladder  to  Fame.  Coiia  w\as  there  at  the  poet's 
shoulder  and  motioned  him  to  ascend.  Drummond, 
Dunbar,  Ramsay,  Fergusson, — you  have  done  your 
best;  but  never  book  of  yours  v/as  like  this,  one, 
done  at  Kilmarnock!  Like  fire  among  whin  bushes 
or  dry  heather  on  the  moors,  so  spread  the  flame  his 
genius  had  enkindled.  His  was  at  once  a  song  of 
such  repute  that  the  lady  in  her  castle,  the  minister 
in  his  manse,  the  philosopher  and  literateur  in  his 
study,  the  herdsman  and  ploughman  on  the  hills, 
the  servant  girl  in  the  kitchen, — all,  and  all  classes, 
seized  eagerly  on  that  w^onderful  book,  thankful  to 
get  it  at  three  shillings, — and  to  pore  upon  it,  for- 
getful of  all  else,  by  the  hour.  What  next?  Of 
course  he  shall  hear  from  good  and  worthy  Dr. 
Blacklock!  Of  course  farewells  are  taken  back, 
"old  Coila's  hills  and  dales"  reclaim  him,  while 
mounted  on  a  steed  furnished  at  his  hand,  and  en 
route  to  Edinburgh,  his  is  a  triumphal  progress  all 
the  way! 

We  might  dwell  on  his  astonishing  career  in  that 


J  38  BONNIE  JEAN. 

city,  but  Jean  does  not  figure  there.  She  is  in  hu- 
miliation and  obscurity.  Meanwhile  her  lover,  for  a 
time,  seems  to  cast  a  lustre  on  the  street  as  he  walks, 
and  the  young-  Jeffreys  of  the  time  are  gazing  after 
him.  He  sits  with  the  magnates  and  drains  their 
wine,  while  they  beam  upon  the  prodigy;  and  when 
he  opens  his  lips  in  speech  or  song  they  behold  their 
own  Scotland,  as  Mirza  beheld  the  valley  of  Bagdat 
when  enchanted  by  the  presence  of  the  genius. 
Alas!  when  he  was  gone  they  were  drinkers,  and 
diners,  and  hunters,  and  kneader's  of  common  clay, 
just  the  same!  Then,  the  glamor  gone,  the  gold 
dimmed, — his  fine  eyes  and  bold,  bright  speech  no 
longer  a  novelty, — he  may  retreat  a  social  step  or 
two,  and  finally  subside  to  the  pothouse;  since,  in 
their  view,  he  seems  to  have  for  that  station  some 
affinity.  And  VN^hat  is  our  station  in  life?  Is  it  not 
that  whereunto  we  are  born,  or  into  which  we  are 
cast,  sometimes  with  little  respect  to  our  fitness 
therefor  ?  But  for  the  pothouse,  which  caught  the 
shimmer  of  his  matchless  verse,  would  that  that 
open  door  to  death  had  been  closed  to  him,  and  that 
the  rich  and  great  had  beguiled  him  away  from  the 
place  where  his  self  control  was  broken  down.  He 
was  bowing  with  the  weary  burden  of  a  youth  that 
had  wrenched  his  nerves  and  stooped  his  shoulders ; 
and  what  heavyweights,  alas!  each  successive  year 
should  lay  there!  We  sorrow  to  think  how  his  life 
was  preyed  upon  and  frittered  away.  Are  our  breth- 
ren of  the  flesh  set  thus  to  waste  us?  Is  it  true,  as 
the  wise  Goethe  said,  that  we  must  be  either  sledge 
or  anvil?  Must  creation  be  abolished,  indeed,  before 
that  part  of  it  that  preys  upon  the  other  can  be  done 
away?  It  is  a  disheartening  question,  if  we  wait  for 
the  answer. 

Clarinda,    the   new    "mistress   of  his  soul,"    over 


BONNIE  JEAN.  '    139 

whom  he  languished  in  Edinburgh — another  of  his 
half  ideal  and  wholly  mistaken  loves — cannot  detain 
us.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  real  depth  and 
sincerity  of  that  attachment  on  the  poet's  part,  (the 
devotion  of  poor  Agnes  cannot  be  dubious,)  it  occa- 
sioned that  singular  self-revelation  of  the  weakness 
and  strength  of  Burns,  read  nowhere  so  clearly  as  in 
the  "Sylvander"  letters; — yea,  and  moreover,  some 
of  the  sweetest,  saddest  songs  in  any  language, — 
notably  that  one  concerning  which  Scott  declared 
that  four  lines  of  it  "contained  the  essence  of  a 
thousand  love-tales."  Burns,  destined  to  immor- 
tality and  the  tomb;  Agnes,  with  her  voluptuous 
beauty,  to  wear  into  wrinkled  age,  and  to  make  the 
tearful  record  of  the  sixth  December,  1831, — "This 
day  I  never  can  forget.  Parted  with  Robert  Burns 
in  the  year  1791,  never  more  to  meet  in  this  world. 
Oh,  may  we  meet  in  heaven!"  Amen!  Love  there 
may  be  no  wrong. 

Think  you  that  must  have  been  a  proud,  if  not,  a 
glad  day,  when  the  young  man — who  had  carried 
duchesses  oif  their  feet  by  the  stroke  of  his  eloquent 
lips,  and  turned  their  heads  with  his  unlacquered 
brilliancy — set  his  face  away  from  the  city,  where  he 
had  gathered  and  worn  his  ripest  laurels,  toward 
that  cottage  of  the  west  where  those  who  loved  him 
still  struggled  with  their  poverty?  Not  prouder  will 
he  be  to  greet  them  all,  than  will  be  that  fond, 
forgiving  mother — on  whose  knee  sits  the  little 
daughter  whose  coming  had  been  with  shadow — to 
see  her  boy  again,  with  the  smiles  of  Edinburgh  yet 
reflected  from  his  face.  God  bless  that  mother's 
memory !  Untroubled  be  her  rest  in  the  churchyard 
at  Bolton,  in  the  vale  of  Tyne,  who  sung  the  music 
into  her  poet's  soul,  and  who  should  now  be  sleeping 
by  the  side  of  William  Burness,  near  the  old  kirk  of 


I40  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Alloway.  But  Burns,  with  his  five  hundred  pounds 
sterling-  from  publisher  Creech,  may  come  home  to 
Mossgiel  and  help  to  lift  Gilbert's  burdens,  and  g-ive 
cheer  to  all  about  him ; — for  what  a  change  to  his 
worldly  affairs  and  prospects  the  past  few  months 
have  brought ! 

The  same  stroke  of  fortune  that  brought  him  com- 
petence and  fame,  put  him  in  popular  favor  at 
home,  blotted  out  all  wrongs,  and  restored  to  him 
his  Jean, — whom  all  the  while  he  loved,  and  whom 
he  now  married  in  right  good  earnest!  Armour  is 
now  complacent  and  interposes  no  barrier.  And 
quite  human  and  natural  it  was,  doubtless,  as  Stod- 
dard regards  it,  for  Armour  now  to  open  his  door,  to 
give  him  his  hand,  and  permit  Jean  to  act  her 
pleasure.  We  are  not  unwilling  to  see  Demos  pla- 
cated by  some  borrowed  regard  for  the  singing- 
shepherds,  and  the  course  of  true  love,  so  coldly 
checked,  running  free  and  smooth  again.  Wrath 
cannot  burn  forever  in  a  stone-mason's  bosom ;  and, 
after  all,  is  not  Burns,  penitent,  and  impecunious,  a 
scandal  to  the  country-side,  stealing  kisses  and  mak- 
ing mock  marriages,  one  sort  of  person;  and  Burns, 
triumphant,  belauded,  independent  and  replenished, 
quite  another?  Certainly!  At  least  nine  out  of 
every  ten  persons  will  think  so,  when  they  come  to 
the  question  of  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage. 

Now  we  come  to  that  era  in  the  life  of  Burns  the 
contemplation  of  which  has  always  given  us  the 
highest  pleasure,  and  which,  on  the  whole,  we  re- 
gard as  the  happiest,  noblest,  and  most  hopeful,  the 
poet  was  ever  to  know.  He  had  written  his  domestic 
philosophy  in  four  memorable  lines, — 

' '  To  make  a  happy  fireside  clime 

For  weans  and  wife — 
That's  the  true  pathos  and  sublime 

Of  human  hfe  ; — " 


BONNIE  JEAN.  141 

and  we  honor  him  for  his  heroic  attempt  to  realize 
this  in  actual  experience,  though  the  struggle  ended 
in  partial  defeat.  Well  for  him  could  a  modicum  of 
useful  dullness, — the  ballast  of  a  nature  like  Words- 
worth's— have  been  infused  into  him.  The  cup  of 
his  delight  must  needs  be  foaming  at  the  brim,  or 
lying  insipid  in  the  lees.  He  knew  no  middle  course. 
Dullness  was  like  lead  upon  his  spirits,  and  if  mirth 
and  wit  and  wisdom  were  not  at  the  flood,  (putting 
aside  all  other  distresses,)  then 

' '  He  could  lie  down  like  a  tired  child, 
And  weep  away  this  life  of  care, ' ' 

that  had  him  chained,  at  once  as  Fortune's  pet  and 
victim. 

Yet,  with  some  of  the  joy  of  his  new-found  love, 
and  the  light  of  his  young  fame,  about  him,  w^e  fol- 
low him  to  Ellisland,  on  the  Nith,  where  Lord  Dals- 
winton  has  leased  him  a  farm,  and  w^here,  if  he  is  to 
cherish  a  wife  and  bring  up  children,  he  must  set 
about  rearing  a  home.  We  see  him  here,  as  we  see 
the  flowers  at  dawn,  and  hear  him  as  we  hear  the 
birds  at  the  sun- rising.  He  treads  the  fields  he  can 
almost  call  his  own,  and  accumulates  rock  and  lime, 
and  other  materials,  to  build  his  cottage.  What 
matters  now  that  his  own  head  is  sheltered  by  a 
hovel,  and  that  no  smiling  cook  caters  to  his  appetite, 
won  from  the  fresh-turned  mould  and  the  caller  air ! 
He  has  come  home  to  nature  again,  to  love  and  song, 
— and  wherefor  not  to  content?  He  has  come  back 
to  the  "  gay  green  birk  "  and  the  blossoming  haw- 
thorn, the  wildbrier  rose,  the  fox  glove,  the  hare 
bell,  and  the  mountain  daisy,  he  loved  so  well; — 
back  where  he  can  hear  again  ' '  the  loud  solitary 
whistle  of  the  curlew  in  summer  noon,  or  the  wild 
mixing   cadence   of  a  troop   of   gray   plover   in   an 


142  BONNIE  JEAN. 

autumnal  morning-."  We  see  him  standing  with  the 
muse  in  the  midst  of  his  fair  acres,  and  around  him 
the  Whitsuntide  birds  are  singing,  and  down  below 
the  green  and  woody  bank  the  clear  Nith  waters  go 
rippling  on  with  a  melody  like  that  waking  in  his 
own  heart.  We  see  him,  mounted  on  horseback, 
thridding  the  dale,  through  which  the  river  flows,  to 
Dumfries ;  or  speeding  over  the  hills  to  Ayrshire,  for 
a  glimpse  at  Jean  and  the  folks;  or  directing  his 
plough  along  the  furrowed  slope;  or  working  at  his 
cottage,  which  stands  at  this  day,  in  part  the  work 
of  his  hands;  "or  with  a  white  sheet  containing  his 
seed  corn,  slung  across  his  shoulders,  striding  with 
measured  steps  along  his  turned-up  furrows,  and 
scattering  the  grain  in  the  earth;"  or,  "pursuing  the 
defaulters  of  the  revenue,  among  the  hills  and  vales 
of  Nithside,  his  roving  eye  wandering  over  the 
charms  of  nature,  and  muttering  his  wayward 
fancies  as  he  moves  along,"  His  muse,  long  bound 
with  the  silken  fetters  of  Edinburgh,  was  now  liber- 
ated, to  sing  a  clearer,  blither  carol, ^a  song  one 
never  hears  but  his  heart  leaps  up,  as  Wordsworth 
declared  his  did,  when  he  beheld  "a  rainbow  in  the 
sky." 

Yes,  happy  he  was  here,  if  poet  such  as  he  can 
ever  be  happy.  Jean  has  come  at  autumntide;  their 
housekeeping  is  set  up,  and  the  children,  who  had 
been  their  sorrow,  have  already  begun  to  comfort 
them.  Burns  teaches  them  the  catechism,  and  tries 
to  be  a  good  father  to  them,  as  he  remembers  one  who 
once  was  such  to  him.     Even 

"  The  big  ha-Bible,  ance  his  father's  pride," 

is  sometimes  opened,  and  used  devoutly,  as  in  that 
home  where  he  was  in  the  place  of  an  elder  son  after 
that  sire  had  gone.     Jenny  Geddes,  "  the  auld  mare," 


BONNIE  JEAN.  143 

will  not  need  so  often  to  carry  him  "over  the  Cum- 
nock hills,"  for  the  lode-star  that  drew  him  to  Ayr- 
shire is  in  Nithsdale  now.  The  new  "biggin"  be- 
ing ready,  they  went  into  it.  On  the  day  when  the 
new  abode  was  to  be  christened,  Burns,  who  "de- 
lighted to  keep  up  the  old-world  freits  or  usages," 
bade  Betty  Smith,  the  servant,  "take  a  bowl  of  salt, 
and  place  the  family  Bible  on  the  top  of  it,  and, 
bearing  these,  walk  first  into  the  new  house  and 
possess  it,"  while  "he  himself,  with  his  wife  on  his 
arm,  followed  Betty  and  the  Bible  and  the  salt,  and 
so  entered  their  new  abode." 

But,  even  in  this  retirement,  and  amid  the  soli- 
tudes of  his  favorite  country,  great  despairs  and  dis- 
gusts came  over  him.  Sometimes  duchesses  and 
lords  and  the  elite  of  Edinburgh  walked  in  his 
vision,  and  the  mirth  of  gilded  tables  rang  in  his 
ears.  Then  the  humble  peasantry  of  whom  he 
came, — the  "hardy  sons  of  rustic  toil,"  the  sight  of 
whose  smoking  firesides  in  the  quiet  gloaming  filled 
his  eyes  with  benignant  tears  and  his  heart  with 
blessings,  dwindled  in  his  eyes  to  ignorant  churls, 
unfit  for  his  association.  "The  only  things,"  he 
said,  in  some  such  mood,  to  Bengo,  the  engraver, 
' '  that  are  to  be  found  in  this  country  in  any  degree 
of  perfection  are  stupidity  and  canting."  What  to 
them  was  Coila's  laureate  in  comparison  with  the 
steady-going  farmer,  who  attended  to  his  fields,  and 
kept  his  accounts  straight?  "Prose,"  he  declared, 
"  they  only  knew  in  graces  and  sermons,  which  they 
valued,  like  plaiding  webs,  by  the  ell ;  while  a  poet 
and  a  rhinoceros  suggested  ideas  equally  distinct 
and  agreeable."  The  fact  is,  his  farming  did  not 
prosper ;  only  poetry  and  the  excise  turned  out  well. 
It  seemed  that  nature,  who  had  given  him  the  har- 
vest of  the  eye  and  heart,  had  consistently  denied 


144  BONNIE  JEAN. 

him  any  other  out  of  her  fields ;  for  why  should  even 
a  poet  have  everything?  How  hard  is  this  rural  ex- 
istence to  dignify  and  adorn!  Horace  and  Cowley 
had  tried  and  praised  it;  but  they  had  never  tried  to 
dig  out  a  living  and  pay  rent  from  the  wet  clay  of 
EUisland.  "Dr.  Moore  had  mentioned  the  friendli- 
ness of  husbandry  to  fancy,  w^hile  he  wished  for  him 
the  prosperous  union  of  the  farmer  and  the  poet. 
But  Burns  had  neither  Maecenas  for  a  landlord  nor 
Horace  for  a  neighbor. "  But  he  gave  the  tribute  of  a 
glowing  admiration  to  such  small  poets  as  the  country 
then  furnished.  It  seems  as  if  an  astral  lamp  bowed 
to  the  tallow  candles. 

Dear  EUisland !  First  home  of  Robert  Burns,  and 
his  wedded  Jean,  we  love  to  linger  with  you!  Here 
he  exulted  in  song,  as  husband  never  exulted  before; 

"  By  night,  by  day,  a-field,  at  hame, 
The  tlioughts  o'thee  my  breast  inflame  ; 

And  aye  I  muse  and  sing  thy  name — 
I  only  live  to  love  thee." 

You  seem  to  feel  the  leap  of  the  warm  blood  in  that 
verse ;  you  seem  to  hear  the  rollic  rapture  of  a  bob- 
link,  dancing  on  a  spray,  in  the  eye  of  his  mate. 
The  stately  epithalmiums  of  the  poets  are  diminished 
before  it.  Dear  EUisland!  the  poet's  sanctuary  and 
refuge,  his  best  bower  of  song, — why  came  that  sad 
necessity  of  leaving  you?  What  though  he  rode 
through  ten  parishes  his  weekly  two  hundred  miles ; 
he  was  back  to  Jean  again,  and  the  worst  that  came 
here  was  better  than  the  dull  misery  of  Mossgiel. 
Was  it  good  to  give  up  the  cozy  cottage  his  own 
hands  had  builded,  and  the  "  hazelly  glens  "  of  the 
Nith,  with  his  pleasant  outlook  of  woods  and  waters, 
for  mean  Dumfries,  the  Wee  Vennel,  the  dirty  and 
sordid  streets  and  alleys?     But  necessity  is  a  stern 


BONNIE  JEAN.  145 

master;  and  Dante's  exile  and  Tasso's  prison  teach 
us  that,  for  poets,  as  for  ordinary  mortals,  there  is 
appointed  a  destiny  that  we  all  must  learn  to  dree. 

Whatever  storms  came  here  the  skies  were  often 
fair,  and  such  starry  influences  rose  over  him  as  had 
only  blessed  his  boyhood.  For  is  it  not  true  that 
love  in  its  first  blush  kindles  a  new  youth-tide?  Here 
his  first  winter  of  married  life  "glided  happily" 
away,  while  ' '  golden  days  of  the  heart  and  the 
fancy  often  shone,  when  the  father  rejoiced  in  the 
crown  of  the  poet."  Down  by  yonder  riverside 
Jeans  aw  him,  bewitched,  inspired, — stalking  past  her 
with  shining  visionary  eyes,  gesticulating  with  his 
arms,  and  rabbling  off  verses, — his  brain  hot  with 
the  throes  of  Tarn  O'Shanter! 

'*  Kings  may  be  blest,  but  he  was  glorious, 
O'er  a'  the  ills  o'  life  victorious  !" 

Out  in  yonder  stack-yard,  prone  on  the  ground,  did 
not  his  wife  find  him  in  a  realm  of  rapture,  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  kindling  star  of  dawn  then  shinning 
with  lessening  ray?  Could  she  know  that  then  was 
born  in  his  soul  a  lyric  cry  to  which  the  heart  of 
every  after  age  should  tremble,  to  the  end  of  time? 
Here,  to  this  new  shrine  of  song,  came  many  a 
visitor — now  and  then  one  not  altogether  mean  or 
obscure, — among  them  "the  fat  and  festive  Grose," 
who  let  fall  his 

"  Fouth  o'  all  nick-nackets. 
Rusty  airn  caps  and  jinglin'  jackets," 

to  hear  from  the  poet's  own  lips  "of  the  wonderful 
jump  of  Cutty  Sark  and  the  magnificent  terrors  of 
Tam." 

It  is  a  curiously  entertaining  glimpse  we  get  of 
Burns  and  his  wife,  as  entertainers,  while  yet  they 


146  BONNIE  JEAN 

lived  in.  the  Ellisland  cottage,  through  the  eyes  of 
the  English  writer,  Samuel  Egerton  Bridges. 
Drawn  by  the  fame  of  the  new  bard,  and  by  admira- 
tion for  his  genius,  he  came  seeking  an  interview ;  but, 
fearing  that  Burns  might  be  in  a  mood  unfavorable 
to  a  gracious  reception,  proceeded  cautiously,  and 
reconnoitred  the  neighborhood: 

"About  a  mile  from  his  residence,  on  a  bench 
under  a  tree,  I  passed  a  figure  which,  from  the  en- 
graved portraits  of  him,  I  did  not  doubt  was  the 
poet,  but  I  did  not  venture  to  address  him.  On  ar- 
riving at  his  cottage,  Mrs.  Burns  opened  the  door ; 
she  was  the  plain  sort  of  humble  woman  .she  had 
been  described.  She  ushered  me  into  a  neat  apart- 
ment, and  said  that  she  would  send  for  Burns,  who 
had  gone  for  a  walk.  In  about  half  an  hour  he 
came,  and  my  conjecture  proved  right;  he  was  the 
person  I  had  seen  on  the  bench  by  the  roadside.  At 
first  I  was  not  entirely  pleased  with  his  countenance, 
I  thought  it  had  a  sort  of  capricious  jealousy,  as  if 
he  was  half  inclined  to  treat  me  as  an  intruder.  I 
resolved  to  bear  it,  and  try  if  I  could  humor  him. 
I,  let  him  choose  his  turn  of  conversation,  but  said 
a  word  about  the  friend  whose  letter  I  had  brought 
to  him.  It  was  now  about  four  in  the  afternoon  of 
an  autumn  day.  While  we  were  talking,  Mrs.  Burns, 
as  if  accustomed  to  entertain  visitors  in  this  way, 
brought  in  a  bottle  of  Scotch  whiskey,  and  set  the 
table.  I  accepted  this  hospitality.  I  could  not  help 
observing  the  curious  glance  with  which  he  watched 
me  at  the  entrance  of  this  sequel  of  homely  enter- 
tainment. He  was  satisfied;  he  filled  our  glasses, 
"Here's  a  health  to  auld  Caledonia!"  The  fire 
sparkled  in  his  eye,  and  mine  sympathetically  met 
his.  He  shook  my  hands  and  we  were  friends  at 
once.     Then  he  drank,  'Erin  forever!'  and  the  tear 


BONNIE  JEAN.  147 

of  delight  burst  from  his  eye.  The  fountain  of  his 
mind  and  of  his  heart  opened  at  once,  and  flowed 
with  abundant  force  almost  till  midnight.  He  had 
an  amazing  acuteness  of  intellect  as  well  as  glow  of 
sentiment.  *         *  *  j   never   conversed 

with  a  man  who  appeared  to  be  more  warmly  im- 
pressed with  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  visions  of 
female  beauty  and  tenderness  seemed  to  transport 
him.  He  did  not  merely  appear  to  be  a  poet  at  cas- 
ual inter v^als,  but  at  every  moment  a  poetical  enthus- 
iasm seemed  to  beat  in  his  veins,  and  he  lived  all 
his  days  the  inward  if  not  the  outward  life  of  a  poet. 
I  thought  I  perceived  in  Burns'  cheek  the  symptoms 
of  an  energy  which  had  been  pushed  too  far,  and  he 
had  this  feeling  himself.  Every  now  and  then  he 
spoke  of  the  grave  so  soon  to  close  over  him.  His 
dark  eye  had  at  first  a  character  of  sternness,  but  as 
he  became  warm,  though  this  did  not  entirely  melt 
away,  it  was  mingled  with  changes  of  extreme 
softness." 

Praise  to  Jean,  also, — as  steadfast  in  courage  and 
gentleness  and  duteous  affection,  as  her  husband  was 
in  intellect  and  genius.  We  have  little  heart  to  fol- 
low her  to  Dumfries,  the  scene  of  her  deepest 
sorrows  and  of  her  heaviest  cares.  She  disappears 
within  the  walls  of  home,  and  we  get  few  glimpses 
of  her ;  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  hers  were  ever-in- 
creasing privations  and  anxieties.  Her  husband  is 
oftener  and  longer  from  home,  more  exposed  to  peril 
and  mischance,  more  reckless  and  abandoned,  at  the 
last,  and  more  in  questionable  company.  Yes,  she 
bears  her  part,  though  we  see  little  of  her ;  still  she 
keeps  "her  fireside  clime"  by  dint  of  as  brave  a 
heart  as  then  beat  in  the  breast  of  a  woman,  and 
made  an  asylum  for  her  wayward  Robin,  when  stung 
with  the  whips  and  arrows  "  of  outrageous  fortune." 


J48  BONNIE  JEAN. 

He  is  still  before  us, — a  figure,  now  noble,  now 
pathetic,  but  always  appealing,  commanding,  our 
sympathies.  We  see  him  riding,  with  Mr.  Syme, 
over  Galway  moors  in  the  rain,  drenched  and  chill 
without,  but  his  bosom  in  a  "bleeze"  with  the 
martial  fires  of  Caledonia,  and  the  splendid  concep- 
tion of  "  Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled."  We  see 
him  as  he  lifts  his  glass  to  toast  the  nobler  name 
than  that  of  Pitt, — a  spirited  act  that  brought  him 
under  the  eye  and  hand  of  official  jealousy.  We  see 
him  sheering  away  from  the  gala- day  crowd  who 
dared  to  scorn  him  on  the  streets  of  Dumfries, — cut 
to  the  heart  that  once  was  so  light,  but  has  been  so 
broken.  We  see  him  at  the  well  of  Brow,  on  the 
Sol  way  shore, — the  signet  of  death  already  on  his 
brow.  We  see  him  sitting  at  the  table  of  Mrs.  Craig, 
widow  of  the  minister  of  Ruthwell,  and  the  setting 
sun  shines  full  upon  his  face.  His  words,  accom- 
panied with  a  smile  of  the  sweetest  benignity,  spoken 
to  the  daughter  of  his  hostess,  when,  observant,  she 
stepped  to  drop  the  curtain, — are  among  the  saddest, 
the  most  pathetic,  he  ever  uttered :  ' '  Thank  you, 
my  dear,  for  your  kind  attention :  but  oh !  let  him  shine : 
he  will  not  shine  long  for  me."  In  all  these  scenes, 
and  in  many  others,  we  see  him  moving,  and  his 
acts,  like  his  words,  are  given  to  fame;  but  Jean, 
who  loved  him,  as  they  can  who  love  with  prayers 
and  deeds,  is  seen  of  few,  and  seen  not  at  all  heroic- 
ally, except  in  that  light  wherein  He  sees  who  sees 
truly  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  the  fireside, — many 
of  whose  names  are  soon  forgotten  on  the  earth, 
though  they  are  written  in  Heaven. 

She  was  a  true  wife ;  she  could  more  than  forgive. 
To  her,  after  her  husband  had  gone,  his  memory 
was  radiant,  and  the  very  color  of  his  faults  faded 
away.     The  largeness  of  her  heart  had  something  of 


BONNIE   JEAN.  149 

divineness  in  it ;  and  it  was  no  small  tribute  to  her 
erring  lover  when  she  could  say  of  him,  years  after 
his  death,  while  conversing  with  the  Ettrick  Shep- 
herd: '*  He  never  said  a  misbehadden  word  to  me  a' 
the  days  o'  his  life."  Then,  I  will  venture  to  say, 
were  he  here  to  declare  liimself,  he  could  utter  as 
much  of  her.  Mild  of  speech,  gentle  of  heart,  pru- 
dent and  discreet,  she  could  soothe  and  charm  his 
perturbed  spirit,  and  settle  his  cares  to  rest.  Was 
any  other  woman  he  ever  loved  and  sung  so  fitted  to 
him?  Highland  Mary  might  beckon  him  from 
Heaven,  but  Jean  Armour  steadied  his  sometime 
faltering  step  upon  the  earth. 

She  survived  him  till  the  lichens  had  time  to  grow 
upon  his  gravCvStone ;  till  his  dust  had  been  exhumed 
and  grandly  ensepulchred  again.  She  lived  to  a 
serene  and  beautiful  age;  she  saw  the  star  of  his 
fame  ascended  high,  and  knew  him,  by  universal 
rumor,  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  all  time.  She 
lived,  honored,  respected,  beloved,  and  dwelt  among 
her  children  and  her  children's  children.  In  her 
widowhood  she  abode,  and  held  the  name  and  mem- 
ory of  her  consort  sacred,  nor  ever  pined  for  another 
manly  arm  to  lean  upon.  Before  Hew  Ainslie  left 
Scotland  for  America,  he  called  upon  her; — and, 
while  he  opens  the  door,  we  get  a  peep  at  her  in  her 
closing  years : 

"  It  was,"  as  Thomas  Latto  relates,  "in  a  some- 
what pensive  m.ood  that  he  sought  and  entered  Mrs. 
Burns'  humble  cottage,  where  she  lived  in  compara- 
tive comfort  and  unquestioned  respectability,  sup- 
ported to  a  great  extent  by  the  bounty  of  Lord  Pan- 
mure  ;  who,  though  he  refused  to  contribute  more 
than  a  paltry  pittance  for  the  maintenance  of  his  son 
and  heir,  the  Hon.  Fox  Maule,  was  pleased  to  in- 
dulge  one  of  his  crotchets  by    donating   ^100  per 


I50  BONNIE  JEAN. 

annum  to  Robert  Burns'  strug-gling,  half-destitute 
widow.  She  was  overrun  with  visitors,  but  the 
stranger  introducing  himself,  she  received  him  in 
her  kindly  motherly  way.  His  manner  was  very 
winning  when  not  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  conde- 
cending  patronage,  and  of  that  Jean  had  none.  They 
got  unco  pack  an'  thick  thegither  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  to  tell  it,  and  of  course  the  dead  poet  formed 
the  staple  of  '  the  twa-handed  crack. '  She  commun- 
icated to  him  a  good  deal  that  has  now  passed  from 
a  usually  retentive  memory.  '  Fowr  oors  '  was  just 
approaching,  and  the  venerable  dame  proceeding  to 
'  mask '  her  tea,  courteously  invited  him  to  remain 
and  share  the  refreshing  cup.  They  talked  of  relic 
hunters,  and  she  professed  herself  utterly  aweary  of 
them  and  their  pertinacity.  She  spoke  almost 
cheerily  of  the  '  roup '  of  their  furniture  after  the 
great  man's  death,  and  of  the  '  awful '  prices  realized 
by  eight-day  clock,  dilapidated  '  chairs,  pans,  grid- 
dles, etc'  'But  oh!'  she  said  jokingly,  'if  they 
were  to  be  sell't  noo  they  wad  bring  twenty  times 
mair. '  Hew  wanted  to  take  a  short  walk  in  some 
of  the  bard's  haunts,  and  she  immediately  looked  for 
a  shawl  to  accompany  him.  '  I'm  thinkin,'  remarked 
our  young  man,  '  that  can  hardly  be  the  shawl  ye 
got  frae  George  Thomson.'  'No  quite,'  was  her 
simple  reply,  '  that  wad  need  to  hae  been  well  hained 
to  last  so  long.  It's  sax  an'  thretty  years  sin'  he 
made  me  that  present.'  They  walked  together  to 
Lincluden  Abbey,  I  think — at  any  rate  to  a  ruin — 
and  she  stood  for  a  moment  on  a  certain  sheltered 
and  lovely  spot.  '  It  was  just  here, '  she  observed, 
'  that  my  man  af  ten  paused,  and  I  believe  made  up 
mony  a  poem  an'  sang  ere  he  cam'  in  to  write  it 
doun.  He  was  never  fractious — aye  gude  natured 
and  kind  baith  to  the  bairns  and  to  me. '     Hew  felt 


BONNIE  JEAN.  151 

then,  as  he  did  long  afterwards,  that  Jean,  of  all  the 
women  in  the  world,  was  the  one  specially  fitted  to 
be  the  poet's  life-long  companion.  Clarinda  had  a 
dangerous  '  spunk '  about  her,  and  would  have  stood 
no  nonsense  nor  tolerated  his  admitted  aberrations. 
Mary  Campbell,  though  gentle  and  amiable,  had  yet 
Highland  blood  in  her  veins,  and  the  ire  of  the  scions 
of  Macallum  is  sometimes  easily  roused  and  not  so 
easily  laid.  But  Jean  was  indulgent,  patient,  affec- 
tionate, gentle,  good,  and  above  all,  forgiving.  She 
was  by  no  means  the  untidy  woman  she  has  been 
represented.  Her  skin  and  complexion,  even  in  ad- 
vanced age,  were  fine,  and  she  might  be  considered 
a  comely,  as  she  was  unquestionably  a  pleasant, 
woman.  When  they  returned  from  the  trip,  Ainslie 
proposed  taking  his  immediate  departure,  but  before 
leaving,  grasping  her  hand,  he  said :  '  I  wad  like  weel 
ere  I  gae,  if  ye  wad  permit  me  to  kiss  the  cheek  o' 
Burns'  faithfu'  Jean,  to  be  a  reminder  to  me  o'  this 
meetin'  when  I'm  far  awa. '  She  laughed,  held  up 
her  face  to  him  and  said:  'Aye,  lad,  an'  welcome.' 
So  he  printed  a  kiss  on  her  still  unwithered  lips,  and 
that  was  the  last  he  saw  of  Jeanie  Armour." 

Her  memory  is  still  fragrant,  and,  with  that  of 
her  husband, — whom  she  survived  for  a  term  of 
years  equal  to  the  whole  duration  of  his  earthly  life, 
— forms  a  part  of  that  haunted  landscape.  She  is 
held  dear,  for  his  sake  and  for  her  own.  Just  now 
beneath  our  eyes  lies  a  rude  engraving  of  Bonnie 
Jean,  and  of  her  little  granddaughter, — a  slip  of  a 
girl,  who  stands  beside  the  seated  matron,  enfolding 
her  neck  with  a  slender  arm.  A  white  frilled  head- 
dress gives  an  appearance  of  unusual  fullness,  al- 
most of  puffiness,  to  the  face, — a  face  that  is  still 
fair,  if  not  beautiful.  These  are  the  same  winning 
eyes  that  captivated  Bums,  the  same  motherly  linea- 


152  BONNIE  JEAN. 

ments  that  Ainslie  looked  upon  and  that  Latto  de- 
scribed. Dark  curling  locks  partially  escape  from 
her  cap's  border,  and  the  lips  and  nose  suggest  none 
of  the  shrinking  or  pinching  that  comes  with  age. 
It  is  an  engaging  and  lovable  face,  with  the  bright- 
ness and  freshness  that  belong  to  flowers  and  run- 
ning water, — so  that  I  marvel  not  her  poet  sang  of 
her: 

"  I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and  fair ; 
I  hear  her  in  the  tunfu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air  : 
There's  not  a  bonuie  flower  that  springs 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green  ; 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean." 


BONNIE  JEAN.  153 

THE  BEST  WIFE  FOR  BURNS. 


By  George  Gebbie. 


Jean  Armour  was  the  best  wife  Burns  could  have 
married,  when  we  consider  his  education  and  early 
associations,  and  all  the  circumstances  surrounding* 
him.  She  was  good-looking-,  healthy,  industrious, 
thrifty.  She  was,  moreover,  what  Burns  wanted 
most  in  a  wife,  forgiving,  and  he  must  have  a  strange 
mind  who  says  that  she  didn't  love  him  with  a  de- 
votion undivided  and  unwavering.  Had  Burns  been 
born,  reared  and  educated  otherwise  than  he  was,  it 
might  have  been  allow^able  to  suppose  that  a  better 
wife  than  Jean  Armour  could  have  been  selected  for 
him;  but  as  circumstances  found  him,  we  say,  she 
was  the  best  wife  for  him.  Had  he  married  "  Clar- 
inda"  or  Margaret  Chalmers,  both  of  whom  could 
have^appreciated  him  as  a  poet,  there  would  have 
been  some  congenial  days  and  weeks,  perhaps,  but 
in  the  long  run  we  do  not  believe  that  they  could 
have  controlled  the  wayward  "Son  of  Song"  any 
more  than  Jean  did,  especially  w^hen  we  remember 
the  Scotland  of  the  days  of  Burns.  True,  a  woman 
of  strong  character  would  have  tried  to  correct  him 
and  keep  him  straight,  and  there  is  just  where  the 
trouble  would  have  come  in.  Burns  w^ould  have 
kicked  over  the  traces,  the  harness  would  have  been 
broken,  and  mending  it  would  only  have  more 
rapidly  hastened  the  catastrophe  which  was  fated  to 
occur.  Jean  had  advantages  of  position  which 
Burns  had  not, — the  association  of  local  acquaintance 
between  herself  and  her  husband,  and  all  the  glamour 


154  BONNIE  JEAN. 

of  an  early  and  fervent  love  between  the  two. 
Then,  their  children  existed,  and  her  appreciation  of 
him  (we  have  his  own  statement  for  it)  was  un- 
bounded; and  we  also  know  from  his  own  letters 
that  in  music,  she  w^as  a  kindred  spirit,  as  his  fre- 
quent references  to  her  "  Woodnotes  wild,"  bear 
ample  witness. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  155 

BURNS'S  BONNIE  JEAN. 


By  Angus  Ross,  Glasgow, 
Author  of  ''Home  and  other  Poems.'" 


Great  Dukes  and  Earls  may  find  a  place. 

On  History's  hoary  page ; 
And  ladies  fair  of  stately  grace. 

May  poet's  pen  engage, 
Be  mine  to  sing  the  praises  due 

To  Burns's  Bonnie  Jean. 

By  fate's  decree  of  lowly  birth, 

And  in  a  cottage  bred ; 
Yet  was  her  heart  of  truest  worth, 

Her  soul  with  truth  inlaid. 
And  fair  like  gowan  on  the  green 

Was  Burns's  Bonnie  Jean. 

Tho'  oft  the  bard  in  lofty  strains 

Did  of  his  country  sing ; 
Of  Bruce  and  Wallace  and  their  trains 

He  made  the  echoes  ring; 
But  aye  he  poured  his  sweetest  strains 

In  praise  of  Bonnie  Jean. 

While  Bonnie  Doon  flows  to  the  sea, 
And  flowers  spring  to  be  pressed. 

While  little  birds  sing  merrily, 
And  love  stirs  human  breast, 

Of  noble  women  she'll  be  queen. 
This  Burns's  Bonnie  Jean. 


IS6  BONNIE  JEAN. 

THE    HOME    LIFE    OF    BURNS    AND 
JEAN    ARMOUR. 


Dumfries  Letter  to  the  London  Times,  Dec.  7,  i8Sj. 


The  south-western  region  of  Scotland — Dumfries 
and  Galloway — lying  toward  the  sun  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Solway,  is  not  much  sought  after  by 
lovers  of  picturesque  scenery.  It  lies  out  of  the 
beaten  track  of  tourists  and  wonder  hunters.  In 
comparison  with  the  solemn  grandeur  of  the  High- 
land mountains  and  glens  and  the  stern  ruggedness 
of  the  west  coast,  it  is  nowhere.  Rich  beauty 
rather  than  sterile  sublimity  is  its  most  prominent 
characteristic  history,  antiquity  and  modern  litera- 
ture add  the  charms  of  association  to  the  scenery  in 
a  way  that  is  quite  unique.  The  ruins  of  Caerlave- 
rock  and  Lochmaben  and  Thrieve  Castles  remind  us 
of  feudal  times.  The  rnins  of  Dundrennan,  Sweet- 
heart, and  Lincluden  Abbeys  carry  us  back  to  the 
monastic  age.  Carsluith  and  Ravenshall  tell  us  that 
we  are  in  the  land  of  Scott — of  Guy  Mannering  and 
Redgauntlet.  Ellisland  and  Dumfries  conjure  lis 
into  the  land  of  Burns,  associated  as  they  are  with 
the  scenes  of  "Scots  wha  hae  "  and  "  Auld  Lang 
Syne,"  and  "  Duncan  Gray,"  and  many  other  of  the 
choicest  lyrics  of  the  ploughman  bard.  Unquestion- 
ably it  is  their  later  literary  associations  that  consti- 
tute the  potent  spell  that  attracts  wanderers,  enthus- 
iastic, though  comparatively  few,  to  this  region  of 
Scotland.  If  any  proof  of  this  were  required,  it 
would  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  great  majority 
of  the  pilgrims  whose  curiosity  leads  them  into  the 
district  are  neither  Englishmen  nor  Scotsmen,  but 


BONNIE  JEAN.  157 

are  Americans.  Americans  care  very  little  for  feudal 
times — for  Maxwel's  or  Johnstons,  or  Kirkpatricks, 
for  monks  or  for  nuns — but  they  care  a  great  deal 
for  Meg  Merrilles  and  Bertram  of  Ellangowan,  for 
Robert  Burns  and  Bonnie  Jean,  for  Highland  Mary 
and  Tam  o'Shanter.  •  And  here  Burns  rather  than 
Scott,  is  the  potent  attraction.  All  Scotland  is  the 
land  of  Scott — from  Sumburg  Head  to  Kirkmaiden ; 
but  there  are,  as  every  one  knows,  two  Lands  of 
Burns.  There  is  the  Ayrshire  land,  in  which  the 
poet  spent  his  youth  and  his  early  manhood;  and 
there  is  the  Dumfriesshire  land,  in  which  he  spent 
the  last  eight  years  of  his  life,  which  proved  at  once 
his  saddest  and  his  most  brilliant  as  well  as  his  most 
prolific  days.  It  is  of  Dumfriesshire  as  the  scene  of 
the  greatest  trials  and  the  greatest  triumphs  of  the 
life  of  Burns,  as  his  last  home  on  earth  and  the 
cherished  resting-place  of  his  ashes,  that  I  wish  to 
speak  in  this  letter. 

Burns  was  in  his  thirtieth  year  when  he  made  a 
fresh  start  in  life  as  tenant  of  the  farm  of  Ellisland, 
about  five  miles  north  of  the  town  of  Dumfries. 
He  was  newly  married  to  Jean  Armour;  he  had 
visited  Edinburgh,  and  his  reputation  as  a  poet  was 
fairly  established.  He  was  full  of  the  energy  of 
early  manhood,  and  fortune  seemed  to  be  smiling  on 
his  efforts  to  establish  for  himself  a  permanent 
home.  The  present  farm-house  of  Ellisland,  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  gently  flowing  Nith,  was  built  for 
Burns  after  he  entered  on  the  tenancy  of  the  farm. 
It  is  a  long,  low,  not  uncomfortable  one-story  house 
of  four  rooms,  and  it  is  now  in  much  the  same  state 
in  which  it  was  then,  excepting  that  the  room  which 
Burns  used  as  a  kitchen  is  now  a  bedroom.  Burns's 
parlor  is  still  the  parlor  of  the  house.  Lines 
scratched  with  a  diamond  on  the  windows  of  this  and 


158  BONNIE  JEAN. 

another  room  profess  to  be  from  the  poet's  hand,  as 
he  had  a  well-known  fondness  for  making  his  mark 
in  that  way;  but  these  Ellisland  lines  are  of  more 
than  donbtful  authenticity.  It  is  interesting  to  think 
that  these  rooms  constituted  the  home  of  Burns  dur- 
ing the  happiest,  or  at  least  the  most  hopeful  days  of 
his  life.  It  is  more  interesting  perhaps  to  go  outside 
and  to  feel  that  these  are  the  very  woods  and  fields 
and  river  on  which  the  poet's  eye  rested,  and  whence 
he  drew  some  of  his  natural  inspiration.  Across  the 
Nith  are  the  woods  of  Dalswinton,  and  what  was 
then  the  residence  of  Burns's  ingenious  and  sympa- 
thetic landlord,  Miller,  the  inventor  of  the  steam- 
boat. About  a  mile  higher  up  the  Nith  on  his  own 
side  are  the  pleasant  bowers  of  Friar's  Carse,  where 
lived  his  good  friend  Capt.  Riddel  of  Glcnriddel; 
and  between  them  was  the  Hermitage,  then  a  charm  • 
ing  rustic  retreat,  to  which  Riddel  gave  the  poet  a 
private  key.  Close  at  hand  is  the  Nith  itself,  which 
was  to  Burns  a  perpetual  joy — *•  Winding  Nith," 
"Wandering  Nith,"  "Sweet  Nith" — sharer  of  his 
secrets  and  sole  witness  of  many  of  his  poetical 
paroxysms.  Many  were  the  pleasant  walks  he  had 
by  the  green  bank  of  the  river  between  Ellisland 
and  Friar's  Carse,  but  to  him  doubtless  the  path  was 
also  strewn  with  sad  and  serious  memories,  such  as 
those  which  led  him  on  one  occasion  to  pause  at  the 
Hermitage  and  moralize  in  the  character  of  "The 
Beadsman  of  Nith-side. "  It  would  be  interesting  to 
have  some  record  of  his  thoughts  as  he  traversed 
this  path  to  and  from  the  famous  drinking  tourna- 
ment at  Friar's  Carse,  which  he  attended  as  umpire 
and  chronicler,  and  which  he  immortalized  in  the 
poem  beginning : 

**  I  sing  of  a  whistle,  a  whistle  of  worth." 


BONNIE  JEAN.  159 

A  few  nights  later,  in  the  barnyard  at  Ellisland,  a 
fit  of  deepest  melancholy  gave  place  to  a  divine 
ecstacy,  out  of  which  came  the  sublime  verses,  **  To 
Mary  in  Heaven."  Burns  made  and  sometimes 
wrote  his  finest  poems  in  the  open  air.  There  is  a 
haugh  by  the  river  below  Ellisland  which  was  the 
scene  of  some  of  his  grandest  '*  poetic  pains."  Once 
he  agonized  there  for  a  whole  day,  pacing  the  green- 
sward from  end  to  end,  now  muttering  or  crooning 
to  himself,  now  pausing  by  the  dike-side  to  put  down 
a  thought  or  a  verse,  and  before  the  sun  had  set  he 
had  completed  '*Tam  o'Shanter" — "since  Bruce 
fought  Bannockburn,"  says  Alexander  Smith,  *'the 
best  single  day's  work  done  in  Scotland."  Here, 
also,  before  his  wife  had  joined  him,  he  had  given 
voice  to  his  lonely  yearnings  in  that  tenderest  of  low 
lyrics,  **Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw."  At 
Ellisland,  too.  Burns  wrote  his  incomparable  fare- 
well to  "Clarinda" 

"  Ae  fond  ki«i  and  then  we  sever. " 

of  one  stanza  which — the  fourth — Scott  said  that  it 
contained  **  the  essence  of  a  thousand  love  tales." 
These  are  the  now  famous  lines : 

"  Had  we  never  loved  sac  kindly, 
Had  we  never  loved  »ae  blindly, 
Never  met  or  never  parted — 
We  had  ne'er  been  broken-hearted." 

But  at  Ellisland  the  poet's  mu.se  was  much  more 
prolific  than  his  farm.  Though  for  a  year  he  had 
conjoined  with  his  farm  the  post  of  ganger  or  excise 
officer,  with  a  salary  of  £^^0  a  year,  he  found  him- 
self, at  the  end  of  1791  in  such  straitened  circum- 
stances that  he  was  forced  to  throw  up  his  lease  and 
to  remove  to  the  town  of  Dumfries,  trusting  to  his 


i6o  BONNIE  JEAN. 

office  in  the  excise  for  his  only  means  of  livelihood. 
In  Dumfries,  Burns,  with  his  wife  and  three  sons, 
took  up  his  abode  in  a  house  of  three  rooms  on  the 
second  floor  of  a  tenement  in  the  "Wee  Vennel," 
now  Bank  street.  About  two  years  afterward  he  re- 
moved to  a  better  house,  self-contained,  in  Mill 
street,  or  the  Mill-hole  Brae,  but  now  called  Burns 
street,  and  there  he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days. 
Both  of  these  houses  are  now  objects  of  interest  to 
pilgrims  to  the  poet's  shrine,  especially  the  latter,  in 
which  one  sees  the  little  parlor  in  which  Burns  en- 
joyed the  sweets  of  home  life,  and  the  bedroom  in 
which  he  died.  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the 
house  in  Burns  street,  which  Mrs.  Burns  (Jean 
Armour)  occiipied  till  her  death,  in  1834,  was  pur- 
chased by  the  poet's  family  and  committed  to  the 
custody  of  Public  Trustees,  who  are  bound  to  uphold 
it  forever.  It  is  occupied  by  the  master  of  the  in- 
dustrial school  built  on  the  adjoining  land,  which 
bears  on  its  front  a  tablet  recording  the  fact  of 
Burns  residence  there,  and  surmounted  by  a  bust  of 
the  poet.  Dumfries  was  then,  as  it  is  still,  one  of 
the  handsomest  of  the  provincial  capitals  of  Scotland,- 
"Queen  of  the  South"  it  proudly  calls  itself,  and 
there  is  not  a  little  of  regal  splendor  in  its  spires  and 
towers,  and  in  its  commanding  site  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nith.  There  are  points  in  the  town  from  which 
magnificent  views  are  obtained  of  Nithsdale,  with 
Lincluden  Abbey  in  the  middle  distance,  and  Queens- 
berry  Hill  crowning  the  surrounding  heights.  Then, 
even  more  than  now,  Dumfries  was  a  noted  fashion- 
able resort,  in  which  Edinburgh  being  too  far  dis- 
tant and  London  being  out  of  the  question,  the  local 
nobility  and  gentry  had  their  town  residences.  By 
the  intellectual  society  Burns  was  well  received,  at 
least  until  his  political  opinions,  still  more  than  his 


BONNIE   JEAN.  i6i 

social  eccentricities — for  the  latter  were  those  of  the 
time  and  ought  to  have  gained  him  sympathy  rather 
than  aversion — brought  him  into  collision  with  the 
apostles  of  good  society.  Though  the  persecutors 
of  Burns  have  gone  to  their  own  place,  Dumfries 
still  rings  with  the  name  of  Burns  from  end  to  end. 
A  marble  statue  of  Burns,  recently  erected,  fills  the 
place  of  honor  in  the  streets  of  the  town.  The 
Mausoleum  of  Bums,  in  St.  Michael's  Churchyard,  is 
the  entire  attraction  to  all  from  far  or  near  who  visit 
the  place.  The  site  of  his  pew  in  St.  Michael's 
Church — for  the  pew  itself  was  long  ago  purchased 
and  carried  off  by  a  devoted  admirer — is  regarded 
with  subdued  reverence.  The  parlor  in  the  Globe 
Tavern — "  Burns's  Howff  " — in  which  he  spent  many 
a  merry  evening,  and  in  which  his  favorite  chair, 
occupying  the  Poet's  Corner,  is  still  sacredly  pre- 
served, is  a  point  of  interest  which  no  pilgrim  would 
dream  of  omitting. 

Unhappily,  the  same  Globe  Tavern  has  been  the 
cause  of  endless  misconceptions  of  the  poet's  good 
name.  It  has  been  assumed  that,  because  he  was  a 
frequenter  of  taverns,  he  was  therefore  a  hopelessly 
abandoned  character  and  an  unmitigated  sot.  Those 
who  leap  to  this  conclusion  are  forgetful  of  the 
times  and  of  the  custom  of  the  times  in  which  Burns 
lived.  They  forget  that  the  tavern  was  in  those 
days  what  the  daily  newspaper  is  in  these — the  only 
available  means  of  acquiring  and  of  discussing  the 
news  of  the  day.  That  Burns,  in  his  pursuit  of 
social  intercourse,  sometimes  drank  to  excess  cannot 
be  denied;  but  that  he  was  a  habitual  drunkard  is 
the  reverse  of  the  truth.  The  best  proof  of  this  is 
found  in  the  fact,  which  is  on  record  on  the  testimony 
of  his  wife,  and  of  those  who  knew  him  best,  that 
Burns  was  never  known  to  drink  to  excess  in  his  own 


i62  BONNIE  JEAN. 

house.  His  faults,  grave  as  they  were,  were  those 
of  his  time,  and  not  of  the  man.  No  one,  therefore, 
who  goes  to  Dumfries  and  who  drinks  to  the  im- 
mortal memory  of  the  bard  in  the  Globe  Tavern 
need  be  troubled  with  "  compunctious  visitings  "  on 
the  ground  that  he  is  commemorating  the  fatal  orgies 
of  a  confirmed  bacchanalian.  Burns  was  nothing  of 
that  kind.  He  had  his  weaknesses  and  his  faults, 
like  other  men — more  than  other  men,  because  of 
his  tenderly  strung  and  super-sensitive  nature,  of  a 
pulse  that  "ran  like  a  ratton  " — and  mightily  he 
suffered  for  them.  But  the  sentimental  prudery  of 
the  present  day  that  affects  abhorrence  of  the  name 
of  Burns  because  certain  lordlings  gave  him  a  cold 
shoulder  in  the  streets  of  Dumfries  ought  to  be  re- 
minded that  it  was  for  his  political  far  more  than  for 
his  social  excesses  that  he  was  made  a  martyr  in  his 
later  days. 

Infinitely  more  pleasant,  however,  than  the  mem- 
ory of  Burns  as  a  frequenter  of  the  Globe  Tavern  is 
it  to  think  of  him  as  pacing,  evening  after  evening  in 
Summer  time,  the  Dock  Meadow,  or  the  banks  of 
"winding  Nith,"  opposite  Lincluden,  and  excogitat- 
ing the  century  of  immortal  lyrics  which  have  en- 
deared his  name  to  his  countrymen.  Next  to  the 
Ellisland  period  the  Dumfries  period  was  the  richest 
and  most  prolific  in  the  history  of  his  teeming  fancy. 
"  Duncan  Gray,"  "  Last  May  a  braw  wooer,"  "  My 
heart  is  sair,"  "  Ye  banks  and  braes  o'  bonnie  Doon," 
"Oh,  wert  thou  in  the  cauld  blast,"  "Scots  wha 
hae,'  and  the  immortal  "Auld  Lang  Syne,"  are 
among  the  productions  of  the  poet's  muse  in  the 
Dumfries  period.  The  enumeration  does  not  suggest 
either  mental  decadence  or  moral  deterioration. 
The  real  sadness  lies  in  the  reflection  that  the  maker 
of   these  masterpieces  of  our  literature,  and  of  all 


BONNIE  JEAN.  163 

literature,  was  at  the  time  of  their  production  a 
supervisor  of  excise  with  a  salary  of  ^70  a  year, 
living  in  a  house  in  Dumfries  for  which  he  paid  no 
more  than  ^8  a  year  rent.  It  is  pleasant,  at  the 
same  time  to  know  that  Burns  has  still  representatives 
in  the  flesh  who  cherish  his  memory.  His  third  son, 
Lieut.  Col.  James  Glencairn  Burns,  left  a  daughter 
by  his  first  marriage  named  Sarah,  who  married  Dr. 
Berkeley  Hutchison,  of  Cheltenham,  and  who  has  a 
son  and  three  daughters.  These  are  the  great- 
grandchildren of  the  poet,  and  are  his  only  direct 
and  lawful  descendants.  James  Burns  was  twice 
married,  and  by  his  second  marriage  he  also  left  a 
daughter,  who  is  still  Miss  Burns,  and  who  resides  at 
Cheltenham  with  her  half-sister. 


i64  BONNIE  JEAN. 


THE    POET'S    IMMORTAL   WREATH 
FOR  BONNIE  JEAN. 


A  MAUCHLINE  LADY. 

When  first  I  came  to  Stewart  Kyle, 

My  mind  it  was  na  steady, 
Where'er  I  gaed,  where'er  I  rade, 

A  mistress  still  I  had  aye : 
But  when  I  came  roun'  by  Mauchline  town, 

Not  dreadin'  onie  body, 
My  heart  was  caught  before  I  thought, 

And  by  a  Mauchline  lady. 


THE  BELLES  OF  MAUCHLINE. 

In  Mauchline  there  dwells  six  proper  young  belles, 
The  pride  of  the  place  and  its  neighborhood  a'. 

Their  carriage  and  dress,  a  stranger  would  guess. 
In  London  or  Paris  they'd  gotten  it  a' : 

Miss  Miller  is  fine.  Miss  Markland's  divine, 

Miss  Smith  she  has  wit,  and  Miss  Betty  is  braw : 

There's  beauty  and  fortune  to  get  wi'  Miss  Morton, 
But  Armour's  the  jewel  for  me  o'  them  a'. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  165 


OH!  WERE  I  ON  PARNASSUS'  HILL. 

Oh,  were  I  on  Parnassus'  hill ! 
Or  had  of  Helicon  my  fill ; 
That  I  might  catch  poetic  skill, 

To  sing  how  dear  I  love  thee. 
But  Nith  maun  be  my  muse's  well, 
My  muse  maun  be  thy  bonnie  sel' ; 
On  Corsincon  I'll  glow'r  an'  spell, 

An'  write  how  dear  I  love  thee. 

Then  come,  sweet  muse,  inspire  my  lay ! 
For  a'  the  lee-lang  simmer's  day 
I  couldna  sing,  I  couldna  say, 

How  much,  how  dear  I  love  thee. 
I  see  thee  dancing  o'er  the  green. 
Thy  waist  sae  jimp,  thy  limbs  sae  clean. 
Thy  tempting  lips,  thy  roguish  een — 

By  heaven  an'  earth  I  love  thee. 

By  night,  by  day,  a-field,  at  hame. 

The  thoughts  o'  thee  my  breast. inflame; 

An'  aye  I  muse  an"  sing  thy  name — 

I  only  live  to  love  thee. 
Tho'  I  were  doom'd  to  wander  on, 
Beyond  the  sea,  beyond  the  sun, 
Till  my  last  weary  sand  was  run ; 

Till  then — and  then  I  love  thee. 


1 66  BONNIE  JEAN. 


MY    JEAN. 

Tho'  cruel  fate  should  bid  us  part, 

As  f ar's  the  pole  and  line ; 
Her  dear  idea  round  my  heart 

Should  tenderly  entwine. 

Tho'  mountains  frown  and  deserts  howl, 

And  oceans  roar  between ; 
Yet,  dearer  than  my  deathless  soul, 

I  still  would  love  my  Jean. 


OF  A'  THE  AIRTS  THE  WIND   CAN   BLAW. 

Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw. 


I  dearly  like  the  west. 
For  there  the  bonnie  lassie  lives, 

The  lassie  I  lo'e  best: 
There  wild  woods  grow,  and  rivers  row, 

And  mony  a  hill  between ; 
But  day  and  night  my  fancy's  flight 

Is  ever  wi'  my  Jean. 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

I  see  her  sweet  and  fair : 
I  hear  her  in  the  tunefu'  birds, 

I  hear  her  charm  the  air : 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green, 
There's  not  a  bonnie  bird  that  sings, 

But  minds  me  o'  my  Jean. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  167 


IT  IS  NA,  JEAN,  THY  BONNIE   FACE. 

It  is  na,  Jean,  thy  bonnie  face, 

Nor  shape  that  I  admire. 
Although  thy  beauty  and  thy  grace 

Might  weel  awake  desire. 
Something  in  ilka  part  o'  thee. 

To  praise,  to  love,  I  find : 
But  dear  as  is  thy  form  to  me. 

Still  dearer  is  thy  mind. 

Nae  mair  ungen'rous  wish  I  hae, 

Nor  stronger  in  my  breast, 
Than  if  I  canna  mak  thee  sae. 

At  least  to  see  thee  blest. 
Content  am  I,  if  Heaven  shall  give 

But  happiness  to  thee : 
And  as  wi'  thee  I'd  wish  to  live, 

For  thee  I'd  bear  to  die. 


i68  BONNIE  JEAN. 


I  HA'E  A  WIFE  O'  MY  AIN. 

I  ha'e  a  wife  o'  my  ain — 

I'll  partake  wi'  naebody; 
I'll  tak'  cuckold  frae  nane, 

I'll  gi'e  cuckold  to  naebody. 
I  ha'e  a  penny  to  spend, 

There — thanks  to  naebody ; 
I  ha'e  naething  to  lend, 

I'll  borrow  frae  naebody. 

I  am  naebody's  lord — 

I'll  be  slave  to  naebody; 
I  ha'e  a  gude  braid  sword, 

I'll  tak'  dunts  frae  naebody, 
I'll  be  merry  an'  free, 

I'll  be  sad  for  naebody; 
If  naebody  care  for  me, 

I'll  care  for  naebody. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  169 


THE  WINSOME  WEE   THING. 

She  is  a  winsome  wee  thing, 
She  is  a  handsome  wee  thing, 
She  is  a  bonnie  wee  thing, 
This  sweet  wee  wife  o'  mine. 

I  never  saw  a  fairer, 

I  never  lo'ed  a  dearer ; 

And  neist  my  heart  I'll  wear  her. 

For  fear  my  jewel  tine. 

Oh  leeze  me  on  my  wee  thing ; 
My  bonnie,  blythesome  wee  thing ; 
Sae  lang's  I  hae  my  wee  thing, 
I'll  think  my  lot  divine. 

Tho'  warld's  care  we  share  o't. 
And  may  see  meikle  mair  o't ; 
Wi'  her  I'll  blythely  bear  it, 
And  ne'er  a  word  repine. 


I70  BONNIE  JEAN. 


THIS  IS  NO  MY  AIN  LASSIE. 

CHORUS. 

Oh  this  is  no  my  ain  lassie, 

Fair  tho'  the  lassie  be ; 
Oh  weel  ken  I  my  ain  lassie, 

Kind  love  is  in  her  e'e. 

I  see  a  form,  I  see  a  face 
Ye  weel  may  wi'  the  fairest  place ; 
It  wants  to  me  the  witching  grace, 
The  kind  love  that's  in  her  e'e. 

She's  bonnie,  blooming,  straight,  and  tall. 
And  lang  has  had  my  heart  in  thrall ; 
And  aye  it  charms  my  very  sanl, 
The  kind  love  that's  in  her  e'e. 

A  thief  sae  paukie  is  my  Jean, 
To  steal  a  blink,  by  a'  unseen; 
But  gleg  as  light  are  lovers'  een. 
When  kind  love  is  in  her  e'e. 

It  may  escape  the  courtly  sparks. 
It  may  escape  the  learned  clerks; 
But  weel  the  watching  lover  marks 
The  kind  love  that's  in  her  e'e. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  171 


THEIR  GROVES  OF  SWEET  MYRTLE. 

Their  groves  o'  sweet  myrtle  let  foreign  lands  reckon, 
Where  bright-beaming  summers  exalt  the  perfume ; 

Far  dearer  to  me  yon  lone  glen  o'  green  breckan, 
Wi'  the  burn  stealing  under  the  long  yellow  broom. 

Far  dearer  to  me  are  yon  humble  broom  bowers, 
Where  the  blue-bell  an'  gowan  lurk  lowly  unseen ; 

For  there,  lightly  tripping  amang  the  wild  flowers, 
A- listening  the  linnet  aft  wanders  my  Jean. 

Tho'  rich  is  the  breeze  in  their  gay  sunny  valleys. 

An'  cauld  Caledonia's  blast  on  the  wave ; 
Their  sweet  sented  woodlands  that  skirt  the  proud 
palace, 
What   are  they? — the   haunt   of    the    tyrant   and 
slave ! 

The  slave's  spicy  forests,  and  gold  bubbling  fountains. 
The  brave  Caledonian  views  wi'  disdain ; 

He  wanders  as  free  as  the  winds  of  his  mountains, 
Save  loves  willing  fetters — the  chains  o'  his  Jean ! 


172  BONNIE  JEAN. 


I'LL  AYE  CA'  IN  BY  YON  TOWN. 

I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town, 

And  by  yon  garden  green,  again ; 
I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town. 

And  see  my  bonnie  Jean,  again. 
There's  nane  sail  ken,  there's  nane  sail  guess, 

What  brings  me  back  the  gate  again, 
But  she,  my  fairest,  faithfu'  lass. 

And  stowlins  we  sail  meet  again. 

She'll  wander  by  the  aiken  tree, 

When  trystin-time  draws  near  again ; 
And  when  her  lovely  form  I  see. 

Oh,  haith,  she's  doubly  dear  again ! 
I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town. 

And  by  yon  garden  green  again ; 
I'll  aye  ca'  in  by  yon  town. 

And  see  my  bonnie  Jean,  again. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  173 

BY  WAY  OF  EPILOGUE. 


By  Hon.   Charles  H.   Collins. 


There  are  so  many  women  connected  with  Burns 
that  for  many  years  the  one  who  above  all  others 
was  the  source  of  his  greatest  inspiration  was  not  at 
once  recognized.  This  is  the  woman  to  whom 
Bums  on  his  death  bed  in  1796,  amid  the  horrors  of 
poverty  and  distress  made  the  memorable  declaration 
'*They  will  ken  me  better,  Jean,  a  hundred  years 
hence. " 

He  saw  then  dimly  as  in  a  vision,  his  future  fame 
and  that  his  devoted  wife  "Bonnie  Jean"  would 
arise  in  glory  by  his  side  forever  linked  with  him. 
Jean  knew  the  real  Burns — not  the  artificial.  She 
knew  that  she  was  his  fate — that  she  was  for  him, 
and  better  for  him  than  any  of  those  who  simply 
represented  episodes  in  his  fitful  career.  Of  Jean 
Armour  none  can  speak  but  in  praise.  Her  place  is 
fixed  in  the  good  opinion  of  generations  gone  before 
and  of  those  yet  to  come. 

The  wisest  and  most  discriminating  of  Scottish 
writers  have  written  of  her  in  characters  of  purest 
ray  serene  and  posterity  has  enthroned  her  memory 
as  the  loving,  faithful,  true  and  much  enduring  wife 
of  an  erratic  and  hard-to-manage  man,  who  'mid  all 
his  wanderings  paid  to  her  the  truest  homage  of  a 
love  boundless  as  it  was  sincere.  Ellison  Begbie, 
Burns  thought  (at  one  time)  would  have  made  him 
happy.  She  did  not  think  so,  and  ' '  the  Lass  of 
Cessnock  Banks"  judged  wisely.  "My  Handsome 
Nell  "  was  a  delightful  memory,  but  this  sweet  inno- 
cent being  would  have  made  a  poor  life  partner  for 


174  BONNIE  JEAN. 

the  matured  Burns.  It  required  the  strong  will,  the 
perfect  womanhood  of  Jean  Armour  to  control  that 
proud  and  passion  ladened  soul.  She  tamed  his  re- 
morseful notes — quelled  the  haunting  spirits  which 
like  the  Furies  pursued  this  Modern  Orestes  of  Scot- 
tish song  judging  by  many  of  his  lyrics. 

To  Jean  the  real  Burns  always  appeared,  not  the 
fever  heated  brain  driven  by  consuming  flame  on- 
ward to  an  uncertain  fate.  Without  her  his  fame 
would  have  been  as  fitful  as  the  luring  glare  of  the 
-'Will  o'  the  wisp"  over  the  Scottish  fens.  The 
ghouls  who  have  ransacked  every  detail  of  the  Poet's 
life  stand  silenced  and  abashed  now  at  the  end  of  the 
hundred  years  before  the  character  of  Jean  who 
knew  him  better  than  all  the  world  beside  and  for- 
gave him  all  out  of  her  great  love  and  great  true 
heart.  The  world  at  the  end  of  the  hundred  years 
has  without  hesitation,  guided  by  the  instinct  of 
justice,  set  aside  even  Highland  Mary  the  immortal- 
ized deity  of  song  and  placed  far  above  her  "  Bonnie 
Jean." 

There  is  a  little  song  of  Burns's  entitled  "The 
Mauchline  Lady"  which  I  have  always  thought  gave 
an  unconscious  glimpse  of  his  own  unsteadiness  and 
of  the  power  of  Jean  Armour  over  him  from  the 
beginning — 

'  *  When  first  I  came  to  Stewart  Kyle 

My  mind  it  was  na'  steady, 
Where'er  I  gaed,  where'er  I  rade, 

A  mistress  still  I  had  aye  ; 
But  when  I  cam'  roun'  by  MauchUne  town, 

Not  dreadin' ony  body. 
My  heart  was  caught  before  I  thought 

And  by  a  MauchHne  lady." 

Again  in  his  description  of  the  Belles  of  Mauchline, 
"Miss  Miller  is  fine,   Miss  Markland's  divine.   Miss 


BONNIE  JEAN.  175 

Smith  she  has  wit,  and  Miss  Betty  is  braw ;  There's 
beauty  and  fortune  to  get  wi'  Miss  Morton.  But 
Armour's  the  jewel  for  me  o'  them  a'." 

Poor  Burns,  he  could  no  more  escape  his  destiny 
than  the  moth  allured  by  the  candle's  flame,  but  in 
case  of  Burns  it  was  a  happy  destiny  and  not  a  phan- 
tom alluring  to  death. 

If  Providence  (as  many  suppose)  fixes  our  ends, 
then  the  creation  of  Jean  Armour  was  a  necessary 
solvent  to  make  Burns  life  complete.  When  the 
Poet  contemplated  his  West  India  trip  and  an 
eternal  separation  from  his  native  land,  his  sweetest 
words  were  for  "  My  Jean  "  and  not  for  Highland 
Mary.     Compare  and  see  which  is  from  the  heart : 

* '  Though  cruel  fate  should  bid  us  part, 

Far  as  the  pole  and  line, 
Her  dear  idea  round  my  heart 

Should  tenderly  entwine. 

Though  mountains  rise,  and  deserts  howl, 

And  oceans  roar  between  : 
Yet  dearer  than  my  deathless  soul, 

I  still  would  love  my  Jean." 

The  tribute  paid  to  Mrs.  Burns  in  the  song  "Oh, 
were  I  on  Parnassus  Hill  "  speaks  volumes.  It  was 
produced  before  she  took  up  her  residence  at  Ellis- 
land  as  his  wife.  He  composed  it  one  day  while  gaz- 
ing towards  the  hill  of  Corsincon  at  the  head  of 
Nithsdale  and  beyond  which  was  the  quiet  vale 
where  lived  his  "  bonnie  Jean." 

"Of  a'  the  airts  the  wind  can  blaw  "  Burns  has 
told  us  he  composed  out  of  compliment  to  Mrs. 
Burns  during  their  honeymoon.  It  is  by  many  com- 
petent critics  considered  his  best.  Read  that  beauti- 
ful song  and  see  the  true  Burns.  Read  it  and  see 
who   was    the  real  heroine  and  guiding  star  under 


176  BONNIE  JEAN. 

whose  serene  rays  the  fame  of  Burns  grew.  As  to 
how  happy  she  made  him,  look  at  the  sprightly 
lines  "I  hae  a  wife  o'  my  ain,"  written  shortly 
after  the  poet  had  welcomed  home  his  wife  to  his 
new  house  at  Ellisland — the  first  winter  he  spent  in 
which  he  has  described  as  the  happiest  of  his  life. 
Burns  has  himself  in  another  lyric  given  us  a  char- 
acter of  his  wife  which  cannot  be  improved  upon. 
Nothing  can  be  added  to  it. 

*'  It  is  na,  Jean,  thy  bonie  face, 

Nor  shape  that  I  admire, 
Although  thy  beauty  and  thy  grace 

Might  weel  awake  desire. 
Something,  in  ilk  a  part  of  thee. 

To  praise,  to  love,  I  find  ; 
But,  dear  as  is  thy  form  to  me, 

Still  dearer  is  thy  mind. 

Nae  mair  ungenrous  wish  I  hae, 

Nor  stronger  in  my  breast, 
Than  if  I  canna  mak'  thee  sae, 

At  least  to  see  thee  blest. 
Content  am  I,  if  Heaven  shall  give, 

But  happiness  to  thee  ; 
And  as  wi  thee  I'd  wish  to  live, 

For  thee  I'd  bear  to  die." 

In  chapter  six  of  **  All  about  Burns,"  a  former  com- 
plation  of  our  present  editor,  I  find  an  admirable  de- 
lineation of  "Bonnie  Jean"  by  Dr.  Peter  Ross,  admir- 
able for  its  fairness,  its  just  and  discriminating  study 
of  the  questions  involved  and  creditable  to  the 
author  who  places  the  devotion  of  this  true  woman, 
wife  and  mother  far  above  all  future  criticisim. 

It  is  a  tribute  worthy  of  this  noble  woman  and 
worthy  of  the  author  who  has  seen  through  all  the 
glamour  of  the  Mary,  and  Clarinda  episodes  and  in- 
stalls Bonnie  Jean  forever  as  the  mistress  of  the 
Poet's  home — the  true  mistress  of  his  heart. 


BONNIE  JEAN.  177 

Dr.  Ross  says  there  was  one  difference  which 
speaks  volumes  for  Jean's  supremacy  in  the  Poet's 
heart.  "  While  he  sang  for  her,  she  was  before  him 
with  all  the  faults  frailties  and  short  comings  of 
humanity;  all  the  tedium,  as  it  has  been  called  of 
ordinary  daily  life  while  Highland  Mary  had  passed 
through  the  veil  and  so  become  idealized  long  before 
the  "lingering  star  "  aroused  in  him  such  a  force  of 
agonized  thought,  and  in  time  impelled  the  world,  as 
a  result  of  his  burning  words  to  elevate  the  High- 
land lass  into  one  of  the  heroines  of  poetry."  Jean 
stood  her  ground,  conquered  even  Highland  Mary 
and  around  her  Burns  has  woven  a  garment  as  en- 
during as  his  own  fame.  In  Bonnie  Jean  the  tragic 
element  plays  no  part.  Pathos  there  is ;  endurance 
of  a  hard  lot — a  brave  struggle  under  adverse  con- 
ditions ;  in  short,  the  annals  of  history  show  no  truer 
woman,  better  wife  or  more  affectionate  mother 
than  Jean  Armour  to  whom  Burns  was  indebted  for 
the  few  happy  hours  he  spent  at  home.  Of  all  these 
things  he  is  the  witness.  She  purified  him,  she 
elevated  him  and  guarded  his  fame  w4th  jealous  care 
during  the  long  years  she  survived  him.  May  her 
name  and  memory  be  ever  cherished  by  all  true  and 
faithful  women  who  have  walked  up  the  flinty  crags 
of  time  with  bleeding  hearts  and  who  have  stood 
firm  to  duty  and  untarnished  by  even  a  breath  of 
scandal  during  all  their  days  of  wifehood  until  the 
end  came. 

To  be  the  wife  of  a  genius  such  as  Burns  was  to 
be  endowed  with  qualities  such  as  few  possess.  The 
fate  of  Byron,  Durer,  Milton  and  the  long  drawn 
catalogue  of  unhappy  imions  shows  this.  Jean 
Armour  proved  equal  to  the  task.  Jean  Armour 
succeeded  where  others  would  have  failed.  She  did 
not  quarrel;  she  did  not  upbraid;  she  was  blind  to 


178  BONNIE  JEAN. 

his  follies.  She  was  a  woman  of  tact.  She  under- 
stood him  thoroughly.     She  was  his  good  genius. 

Did  you  ever  compare  the  women  of  Shakespeare 
with  those  of  Burns? 

In  the  long  line  of  shadowy  figures  projected  on 
the  canvas  of  time  by  Shakespeare  his  women  have 
always  appealed  to  the  artistic  sense  in  all  lands. 
Centuries  have  passed  away,  yet  the  endless  com- 
mentaries do  not  cease.  Every  one  who  studies 
Shakespeare  assumes  he  has  found  some  new  reason 
for  the  characters — some  occult  meaning  not  hereto- 
fore discovered.  Shakespeare  has  furnished  a  battle 
ground  for  the  critics  and  a  cause  for  a  war  of  words 
as  to  whether  or  not  he  himself  was  not  a  figure- 
head ;  only  a  mere  name  under  which  the  wits  and 
scholars  of  his  age  ventilated  their  political  ideas. 
Leaving  all  these  controversies  to  those  who  delight 
in  such  matters,  no  one  can  find  elsewhere  more  per- 
fect types  of  womanhood  than  in  Shakespeare. 
Imogen  and  Cordelia  above  all  others  are  such 
pictures  of  rare  beauty  of  soul  that  it  were  vain  to 
try  to  imitate.  The  German  mind  would  come 
nearer  to  such  ideals,  but  no  Englishman  before  or 
since  has  approached  them,  as  indeed  none  of  the 
women  of  contemporary  dramatists  had  any  simil- 
arity to  those  of  Shakespeare.  Trace  the  whole 
course  of  literature  through  the  i6th,  17th  and  i8th 
centuries  and  until  we  reach  Robert  Burns  all  is 
barren  of  the  beautiful  images  clothed  in  feminine 
forms  which  all  men  instinctively  rise  up  and  wor- 
ship. The  emotions  as  abstract  things  are  often 
traced.  The  women  of  Dryden,  of  Pope,  even  of 
Byron  have  a  certain  lack  of  reality.  There  is  no 
heart  in  them.  Gulnare,  Medora,  Haidee,  Parasina, 
in  fact  all  of  Byron's  figures  are  Byrons  in  disguise. 
A  great   poet,  a  great  word   painter  yet   withal   a 


BONNIE  JEAN.  179 

scorner  of  the  humble  every  day  love  which  to  all 
mankind  and  in  all  ages  has  seemed  to  be  the  nearest 
to  Heaven  on  earth.  With  the  coming  of  Robert 
Burns  in  the  latter  part  of  the  i8th  century  there 
again  appeared  the  woman  who  immediately  took 
rank  with  the  high  bred  heroines  of  Shakespeare. 
They  were  humble  Scotch  lassies  but  glorified  by  the 
pen  of  inspii'ed  genius  and  brought  home  to  the 
hearts  of  all. 

They  are  intensely  human.  Their  forms,  their 
winsome  smiles  glow  with  life  on  historic  pages. 
Their  beauty  still  beguiles  the  senses  and  Rosalind 
in  the  forest  of  Ardennes  is  not  more  charming  than 
''The  Lass  of  Ballochmyle, "  or  "Fairest  Maid  on 
Devon  Banks."  The  women  of  Shakespeare  are 
but  shadows  of  long  ago — beautiful  visions  truly, 
but  their  loves  and  sorrows  like  those  of  Hecuba 
seem  but  as  phantoms  of  the  night,  while  the  lassies 
sung  by  Burns  stand  sculptured  in  the  light  of  one 
hundred  years  as  plainly  as  seen  by  him.  This  is 
not  art  but  truth.  The  truth  which  portrays  our  own 
hearts — our  own  women,  the  women  of  all  times  and 
ages.  We  love  Imogen  the  fair  daughter  of  Cymbe- 
line ;  Cordelia  the  loving,  brave  and  true ;  the  golden 
haired  Juliet  so  exquisitely  wooed  and  won  by  fiery 
Romeo;  Viola  pure  as  the  dews  fresh  fallen  from 
heaven;  trusting  and  much  wronged  Desdemona, 
yet  these  are  not  of  our  own  time — not  of  our  en- 
vironment. These  lovely  creations  of  the  dramatist's 
brain,  restless  in  their  loves  and  with  lives  pierced 
by  thorns  mid  the  flowers,  with  all  their  pleasures 
mingled  with  pain  are  human  indeed  in  their  wa)^ 
because  Shakespeare  had  much  of  Burns  in  his 
makeup  as  Burns  had  much  of  Shakespeare.  I  mean 
by  this  that  each  had  the  faculty  of  knowing  how  to 
put   things.       Each   was  in   touch    with    mankind. 


i8o  BONNIE  JEAN. 

Every  one  sees  something  of  himself,  in  Bums 
especially.  Critical  investigation  has  failed  utterlj^ 
to  show  why  Shakespeare  is  so  superior  to  all  his 
contemporaries.  Why  he  stands  uniquely  alone 
among  all  other  writers  of  England,  and  unapproach- 
able. So  cavil,  investigation  and  the  calcium  light 
of  merciless  dissection  has  failed  to  fathom  the 
genius  of  Burns. 

He  is  at  the  head  and  so  easily  that  criticism 
stands  rebuked.  Little  is  known  of  Shakespeare. 
His  personality  is  hidden  in  as  much  obscurity  as 
that  of  Junius  Burns  is  known  through  and 
through.  He  is  part  of  all  his  creations  and  his 
heroines  and  himself  go  down  the  corridors  of  time 
to  immortality  hand  in  hand,  the  central  figure  being 
"Bonnie  Jean,"  the  queen  by  divine  right  and 
crowned  by  posterity  with  the  wreath  of  Amarinthine 
unfading  renown  due  to  her  above  all  others.  If  in 
song  or  story  there  is  one  fit  to  stand  by  her  under 
similiar  environments  the  pages  at  my  command 
have  not  disclosed  her.  She  at  least  seems  to  have 
had  in  good  measure  the  qualities  ascribed  by  Words- 
worth. "The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will,  en- 
durance, foresight,  strength  and  skill.  A  perfect 
woman  nobly  planned,  to  warn,  to  comfort  and 
command." 


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THE    SCOT    IN  AMERICA. 

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AUTHOR  OF 

'^^  Scotland  and  the  Scots;'"  ^^  Life  of  Saint  Andrew;''^  *'  The 

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the  history  of  OUR  race. 

"  PROGRESS,"  ST.    JOHN,    N.    B. 

"A  mine  of  information  to  the  public  lecturer  and  after- 
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preface  to  the  closing  chapter  these  441  pages  are  packed 
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The  mass  of  material  which  he  has  sifted  is  immense.  He  is 
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SAINT  ANDREW. 

THE    DISCIPLE;      THE    MISSIONARY;     THE 
PATRON    SAINT. 

By  peter  ROSS,  Author  of  "Scotland  and  the  Scots,"  etc. 
Cloth,  price  |i.oo. 


THE    LAST    SCOTS    PARLIAMENT. 
A  SKETCH  OF  THE   PAST. 

By  a.  MELVILLE.     66  pages,  paper  covers,  25  cents. 

THE    BURNS    SCRAP    BOOK. 

Computed  By  JOHN  D.  ROSS. 

Full  of  choice  Reading,  Information,  Anecdotes,  Poems,  etc., 

about  Robert  Burns,  his  home,  friends,  country 

and  works.     One  volume,  256  pages. 

Cloth,  |i.oo. 

HOW  I  MADE  MONEY  AT  HOME. 

With  the  Incubator,  Bees,  Silkworms,  Canaries,  Chickens  and 
One  Cow. 

By  JOHN'S  WIFE. 

82  pp.,  illustrated.     Price,  18  cents. 

FROM    DAWN    TO    DUSK.      . 

By  hunter  MacCULLOCH. 

16  mo.,  cloth,  134  pp.  with  Portrait.     Contents:     From  dawn 

to   Dusk ;   Soliliquies  ;  To   My  Wife  ;   Miscellaneous ; 

Epigrams  ;  Songs  ;  Idyls  of  the  Queen.    75  cts. 

BESIDE    THE    NARRAGUAGUS    AND 
OTHER    POEMS. 

By  the  Rev.  ARTHUR  JOHN  LOCKHART, 
112  pp.,  cloth,  |i.oo. 

SCOTLAND    AND    THE    SCOTS. 

By  peter  ROSS. 

Author  of  **  A  Life  of  Saint  Andrew,"  etc.,  etc. 

Cloth,  245  pp.     Price,  Jti.oo. 


THE    BOOK    OF   SCOTIA  LODGE. 

By  peter  ROSS. 

Being  the  History  of  Scotia  Lodge,  No.  634,  F.  &  A.  M.,  New 

York.    Just  published.     Cloth,  price,  |i. 50.     Only 

a  few  copies  left. 

THE  NEW  YEAR  COMES,  MY   LADY, 
WITH    OTHER    POEMS. 

By  CHAS.  H.  COLIvINS.     114  pp.     Cloth,  |i. 00. 

AN   IDYLL  OF  LAKE   GEORGE,  AND 
OTHER    POEMS. 

By  benjamin  F.  LEGGETT,  Ph.  D. 

Author  of   "A  Tramp  Through  Switzerland,"  "    A  vSheaf  of 

Song,"   "The  City  of  Doom,"  etc. 

One  volume,  i2mo.,  Clotli,  Price  75  cents. 

ROBERT    BURNS. 

AN    ODE    ON    THE    CENTENARY    OF    HIS 

DEATH.     1796-1896. 

By  hunter  MacCULLOCH. 

32  pp.     Illustrated.     8vo.,  Flexible   cloth.     Price  20  cents. 
"  Of  the  poems  which  the  occasion  has  already  produced, 
none  can  well  be  more  enthusiastic  or  elaborate  than  this  ode." 

— London  Spectator. 
*'  His  flight  is  steady  and   sustained,  never   decending  in 
commonplace   and   frequently  soaring  to  the  serene  heights 
where  the  skylark  sings. '  ''—Brooklyn  Times. 

BURNS'    CLARINDA, 

A  COLLECTION  OF  ARTICLES  CONCERNING 
BURNS'    EDINBURGH    HEROINE. 

Computed  by  JOHN  D.  ROSS,  LL.  D. 

Cloth,  I1.50. 


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